Kuhns’ tally sets frosh record

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LEWISTOWN - A much-improved Lewistown field hockey team was waiting for Indian Valley Monday, ready to make Senior Day a special one for the Panthers that are playing their final season.

Despite opening the door with their own stumbles at times, the Warriors took a 2-1 halftime lead and stretched it into a 4-1 finish in the Tri-Valley League contest.

Indian Valley had most of the opportunities, especially in the early part of the game - in fact, the Warriors had a penalty corner barely a minute in, and could have converted that one but for a foot call on the shot. Another good chance came in the sixth minute of play, when Lewistown keeper Ashley Wagner went down to the ground, but no one from Indian Valley could lift the ball over her.

As the clocked ticked down toward 12 minutes, Lauren Mowery was in position to make a cross shot, which was repelled. Tayler Kuhns picked up the rebound and dumped it into the box for the first score of the game - and more important, her ninth of the season.

Kuhns, who also had two assists in the contest, broke the school's freshman scoring record with the tally, and has four more games to extend her mark.

Four minutes later, the Warriors again used a crossing play to get in position, with Natasha Strohecker getting the one that counted as her team just kept hammering the ball toward Wagner until one passed.

"It's a rivalry and they're always up for us. It's a little more special when you know it's senior night for the home team," Indian Valley coach Tish Maclay said, offering one reason the game stayed close early on - but she also laid some of the blame at the feet of her team. "I think that we really are not playing to our potential. We need to really concentrate on what we need to do as a team to finish out strong."

Lewistown, not be taken out of this game early, had trouble getting in the circle, but was able to use an open field opportunity to approach the Indian Valley goal and draw a penalty corner with 4:30 left to play, and immediately turned that into a goal. Madison Saxton put the ball in play and Chloe Prosser put her stick to it twice, the second good for a score.

"We've been scoring off corners more the second half of the season," Snook said. "We need to force those and get more corners."

Indian Valley tried to put the game away quickly in the second, moving the first ball into Lewistown's circle and close to the goal. The teams traded corners in the first five minutes of the half, and Strohecker earned her second tally on Indian Valley's.

"We went into halftime 2-1, and we can't seem to hold on to our momentum," Lewistown coach Colleen Snook lamented. "IV had some great corners. We had a lot of foot calls, and that's going to hurt a team."

A third of the way into the second, the Warriors drew three consecutive corner plays, none of which amounted to anything, and that seemed to be the point where the momentum started to favor the Panthers. In a span of 10 minutes, Lewistown drew three corners of its own, two of which offered real scoring chances that Indian Valley's defense was able to turn away. Perhaps the best opportunity for Lewistown came on a scramble in front of the goal with less than eight minutes to play - but again, the well came up dry.

"They were right there," Snook said of the Warrior defenders. "We couldn't do anything. We play around with the ball a little bit too much in the circle. We need to stop it and get a shot off."

Indian Valley's final goal was a Mowery score that Kuhns aided, a second-effort deflection after the final corner of the game.

"The positive was, we've been struggling to score off our corners and we scored on two. That's something we haven't been able to do lately, so that's definitely a plus that we can take from the game," Maclay said. "We're working on our intensity level and keeping that up. I do think we had some pretty good stops today. I think our backs did a better job of stepping up and controlling more of the midfield play."