CAPE ELIZABETH — The forecast made it clear: the Cape Elizabeth and Yarmouth field hockey teams were heading into some rainy weather for their Monday evening matchup.
Not that that was a surprise.
“It seems that when we play Yarmouth, we’re always in a storm,” Cape Elizabeth senior forward Grace Gray said. “We played them last year and it got canceled because of lightning halfway through the game.”
The rain came, and Gray and her teammates looked ready and comfortable. Gray scored five goals and assisted on another, leading Cape Elizabeth to a 7-1 victory over Yarmouth at Hannaford Field.
Kaitlyn McIntyre and freshman Lulu Stoecklein also scored for the Capers (5-1), who have won five games in a row. After being blanked 6-0 by York in the opener, Cape Elizabeth has since outscored its opponents 26-3.
“I think losing to York really made us want to work harder,” Gray said. “We’re working hard to get everything down and work better as a team together.”
The Capers couldn’t have looked much better than they did on a night that saw rain begin shortly after the first whistle and only grow stronger. Yarmouth (2-4) took a quick lead on a goal by Madeline Nieter, but Cape answered when Gray gathered the deflection of a Stoecklein shot and scored from the right side with 4:12 left in the first quarter.
The Capers went ahead 2-1 with 1:57 left in the first when Sophia Chung inserted on a corner to Gray at the top of the circle, and the senior standout whipped a hard shot into the net.
“I really like to take flicks and just drag it,” she said. “The ground was just so wet tonight from the rain, it’s really slippery and moves really fast through the ball.”
Gray knocked home a ball off of goalie Quincy Schnee’s pads for a 3-1 lead with 40 seconds left in the half. She set up Stoecklein with a left-to-right pass with 5:50 left in the third, then scored her fourth and fifth goals with 8:11 and 3:22 left in the game. McIntyre, who was busy generating chances all game, rounded out the scoring with less than 20 seconds remaining.
“It was nice for Grace put up the goals. … She had a lot of assists last week, which is great because she’s getting a lot of attention and being marked pretty heavily,” said Cape Coach Maura Bisogni, whose team attempted 18 corners. “She’s a force up there, to say the least.”
Yarmouth, which got 16 saves in an impressive effort from Schnee, jumped in front when Nieter brought the ball up on a rush, kept it herself and scored with 9:55 left in the first period. The Clippers, stretched thin by three missing defensive starters and forced to play top scorer Sophie Smith on defense, couldn’t keep up the push.
“We’ve got a lot of good things that are starting to click and connect,” Coach Molly Saunders said. “(There was) a lot of (adapting) for today’s game, but I thought we came out strong. You can’t control the weather, but sometimes it gets in your heads.”
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