Against a stalwart Oak Hill back line, the Huskies stood stymied in the first half of the Class C state field hockey championship. But they got just enough of a peek early in the second to make the difference. 

Addie Williams fired a low liner to the left corner of the cage on a feed from April McAlpine just 19 seconds into the second half and Kali Doiron added another at the 4:03 mark to lift MCI to a 2-0 win over the Raiders on Morse Field at Alfond Stadium at the University of Maine at Orono on Saturday.

“I talked at halftime that I felt we had another level of intensity we could get to,” MCI coach Nancy Hughes said. “I felt like we were playing well, but I didn’t feel like we were playing at the highest speed we could.”

That changed quickly out of the break.

“We tend to take a lot of shots, and we’re just off the right position, or a stick is a little too high,” Hughes said.

Not in the first minute of the second half. From the opening whistle, the Huskies marched the ball down the field. Ultimately, McAlpine fed a touch pass to Williams at the right side of the stroke line and Williams blasted the shot to the opposite corner.

“That was a beautiful passing play,” Hughes said, “and those girls do pass very well together.”

That wasn’t necessarily the back-breaker, Oak Hill coach Betsy Gilbert said.

The next one, however, felt like a punch in the gut.

MCI right wing Victoria Friend carried the ball up the right side, nearly lost it over the end line and recovered, firing a pass back toward the middle. There, Doiron batted the ball out of the air and past keeper Abby Fuller for the second Huskies tally.

“Victoria has done a fabulous job all year of carrying that ball on the right and feeding the ball back up when she gets to the end line, whether it’s the stroke or back to the top of the circle,” Hughes said. “We scored like that on Tuesday. It was just a different scorer this time. She fed that ball right over and Kali did a great job picking that ball out of the air.”

“The second goal made it more of an uphill battle,” Gilbert said. “We just could not penetrate. They blocked us well up the middle, and we just couldn’t get our passes into them. It was tough handling that.”

The first half was a tougher battle for the Raiders, despite entering the break in a scoreless tie. MCI outshot Oak Hill 5-1 in the opening frame, and earned eight penalty corners to the Raiders’ one.

“MCI is a great stick-handling team,” Gilbert said. “They outhustled us at times, but our girls didn’t give up.

“They are the best team we’ve played, hands down. They are a very fast, very skilled team.”

After the Huskies’ outburst to begin the second half, Oak Hill, against the grain, seized momentum.

“They started to see that the time was lapsing away,” Gilbert said. “We just didn’t have enough strength to go the distance.”

Oak Hill had more chances in the second half, but MCI keeper Mikayla Carr was up to the task. She finished with four saves on the night to earn the shutout.

At the other end, Fuller did her part. Alongside her sister, Lexi, and senior sweeper Brooke Surette, Fuller turned back nearly two dozen MCI chances.

“I don’t know how many saves Abby had, but she must have had 20, maybe more,” Gilbert said. “And she was all over the place saving it. Defensively, they are just so strong, so resilient.”

So, too, were the Huskies, who didn’t allow the Raiders a chance beyond their single corner chance in the opening half.

“One of our strengths is that the girls consider themselves players all the way up and down the field,” Hughes said. “Traditionally offensive positions know they have to get back and help. They can’t just wait and expect the ball to come to them.”

The title is the first for the Huskies (14-4-0), who play a primarily Class B KVAC schedule. Oak Hill caps its season at 12-6, and one step closer than last year to reaching that elusive first state crown.

“These girls have come a long way, and they deserve the honor and recognition they’ve had this year,” Gilbert said.