Girls Field Hockey: Cranston East Falls to Tollgate in a Nailbiter

's inability to capitalize on early scoring chances came back to haunt them in a girls field hockey game Tuesday afternoon. Tollgate bounced back from a blowout loss to the Thunderbolts last week and rallied from a goal down to stun Cranston East 2-1 in overtime. 

Cranston East controlled play to start the contest, conjuring up a rentless attack on the Titan defense. Nina Steiner led the attack for the Thunderbolts, along with Talya Fishbach and Betty Quinonez. Steiner had the first good look of the game but wasn't able to get it past the Tollgate goaltender. Tayla Fishbach had a penalty shot two minutes later but was also denied.

Fishbach and Steiner continued applying pressure and finally Fishbach was able to score off the rebound of a Steiner shot, making it 1-0 in favor of the Thunderbolts. 

Cranston East kept up the intensity but the Titan defense held strong. Steiner had another great scoring chance but it was again turned away by the Tollgate goaltender. 

Tollgate was able to weather the early storm from the Thunderbolts, only giving up one goal to Fishbach. The Titans defense gave their offense a chance to respond and they were up to the task. 

Tollgate dominated time of possession from the twenty minute mark in the first half until the remainder of the game. Tollgate was showing more effort and playing harder than Cranston East from this point forward in the game. 

Tollgate scored just before the half ended on a great attack from Jamie Claeson, who drove the length of the field and assisted Molly Turner on the game tying goal. The first half finished with a 1-1 score.

Tollgate remained the aggressor in the second half. The Titans did a great job in keeping the ball from getting out of their offensive zone, and were able to continue applying pressure on the Thunderbolt defense. Cranston East Goaltender Melody Francisco was able to withstand the Titan surge and pushed the game to overtime.

A non-sudden death 15 minute overtime is played if there is a tie at the end of a field hockey game.

Tollgate continued their offensive onslaught and were finally able to beat Francisco. Molly Turner, who took part in both Titan goals, won the game on a breakaway and to give Tollgate a 2-1 victory in overtime.

The Titans have trailed by a large margin in both of their first two games and Coach Sherri Boisvert felt that her team was much more enthused going into the second half of this game.

"I just think the girls got excited. The last two games we have been down a lot. We lost 10-2 in our first game and 5-2 to Cranston East just last week. So I just thought they were excited," Boisvert said.

Cranston East Coach Robert Finelli credited Tollgate for their preparation and their desire, but felt that his team had a chance to build a bigger lead early in the game, but wasted their chances.

"They [Cranston East] were 2-0-1 last week. They had an undefeated week. They were feeling really good about themselves. And credit to Tollgate, we gave it to them pretty good last week at our house. But their coaches did a tremendous job and their girls played harder than our girls and they seemed to want it more, especially around the net. We were up 1-0 and that game should've been 3-0 or 4-0. And they scored a goal and we just let them off the hook," Finneli commented.

Tollgate gets its first win of the season and the Thunderbolts will have to regroup after a tough overtime loss.