March 29, 2024
FIELD HOCKEY

Belfast shuts out Rockland Lions’ Holmes gets 350th career victory

BELFAST – Allen Holmes has coached in hundreds of Belfast field hockey games, and admits that occasionally during halftimes he strains to find something fresh to say to his teams, especially as the Lions have kept on winning in his 33 years.

Holmes had plenty to talk about during halftime of a scoreless Eastern Maine Class B quarterfinal against No. 8 Rockland Wednesday. He made up a new penalty corner play, on the spot, which resulted in two quick goals after halftime en route to a 4-0 win, his 350th career win, and a berth in the semifinals for the 15-0 Lions.

No. 1 Belfast, the defending state champ, plays host to No. 4 Camden Hills (8-6-1), which beat No. 5 Winslow 4-1 Wednesday, in Saturday’s 1 p.m. semifinal.

Rockland finishes its season at 6-9-1.

Belfast racked up 11 shots on goal and 10 penalty corners in the first half, but Rockland’s defense, particularly sophomore goalie Dana Clark, held up spectacularly. She made nine saves before halftime and finished with 17 on 26 shots.

Although the Lions were unable to capitalize on their corners, Holmes noticed the Tigers were rushing two players on the left side during corners. In the halftime huddle, Holmes told his players to start their corners from the right side with Kallie Aldus hitting the inserting pass. Aldus was then to pass to Britt Cummings, who was to then pass to Kelsey Jackson.

“That was the adjustment. It made me look good,” Holmes said with a laugh. “But I told them, I’m nothing without them trying what we talked about. … We took a look at the situation and what they were doing, and why we weren’t getting good shots, and just adjusted from there.”

The change paid off immediately. About 71/2 minutes into the second half the Lions got their first corner, and Jackson slapped in a pass from Kallie Aldus. Seven minutes later Jackson scored again for the Lions, this time on an unassisted shot after a corner.

“We were trying to execute the play and get it out as fast as possible,” Jackson said. “[The defenders] all went to Britt and Kal, and I was left open.”

Jackson helped ice the game, assisting on a Cummings goal. Cummings helped close out the game with a pass to Briana Curry, who banged the ball into an open cage with one second left.

“We were nervous but we playing kind of a refuse-to-lose game today,” said Lions midfielder Jamie Flagg. “We can usually come back and score, but we had to be more aggressive on the cage and look for rebounds.”

Rockland didn’t get a shot off, which left Belfast goalie Liz Anderson with little to do – especially as the Lions midfielders made it hard for the Tigers to mount any offense.

“[Belfast has] a lot of skill on that team so I felt pretty good after the first half,” Rockland coach Sue Hurley said. “But I thought we’d be in for a long 30 minutes in the second half. … We played as hard as we could and I thought we had one of the best games of our season.”


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