Moxie Wins Second Straight Versus NMH

EXETER - With family members on campus to watch them, Big Red field hockey defeated Northfield Mount Hermon 3-1 on Saturday, bringing their record up to 6-3 on the year (including an early season scrimmage against Groton).Everyone on the team, including the coaches, agreed that this was Moxie’s best game of the season.While the presence of parents in Exeter’s stadium to cheer on the team was certainly a factor in the win, the team is coming together to play great games. Regardless of the fan turnout, their growing chemistry has led the girls to two consecutive victories.“I guess we had the pressure of parents, but we also just really wanted to win for us. Some alums from the team were here too, so we definitely wanted to win for them as well,” upper Kimberly Dawes said.“It was the best game we have played so far. We talked better, we made smarter passes, and our off ball movement was better,” senior Charlotte Haslett said.These have all been skills that the team has been trying to work on all season, and on Saturday, Moxie was able to pull it all off.Lower Noa Siegel agreed that the team has demonstrated notable growth since the beginning of the season.“We’ve gone from being a good team to being a great team because we’ve gotten closer as friends and we’ve learned how to work and feed off each other in a game situation,” she said.Dawes agreed. “We’ve really learned how to pass and be strategic," she said. "I noticed during timeouts, subs and halftime that a lot of us didn’t look completely wiped out.""Coach [Samantha] Carr told us we need to be strategic with how we play sometimes because in the beginning of the season, we would give 110% and become fatigued," Dawes continued, "but we’re using each other more, so we individually don’t have to run around as much."Moxie seems to have gotten much smarter as a team, which is something that can only be learned through time spent together.Big Red clearly dominated this game in front of their parents, but NMH was still able to score one goal against them.Haslett was hit in the chest by a ball whilst playing defense, getting the wind knocked out of her. Amid the confusion of whether or not Haslett was okay, NMH was able to get past the Big Red defense and sneak in a goal.Senior Carly Perreault was also injured during the game when she took a stick to the head, and sat out for the remainder.Before Perreault was taken out of the game, she had a stellar performance as a midfielder. Seniors Katy Kinnon and Helen Hultin scored two of the team’s goals by playing fiercely on attack. Senior co-captain Hannah Wellington scored the third goal during a penalty stroke.Girls’ field hockey will take on Brooks School in an away match on Saturday.