The Toll Gate and Pilgrim field hockey teams were in playoff action the past week and both saw their seasons come to a close. The Titans fell to top-seeded Classical 3-0 in the Division III semifinals on Tuesday while Pilgrim fell 8-0 last Friday to Cumberland in the Division II quarters.
The Titans pulled off a big 1-0 overtime win over visiting Tiverton in the quarters last week.
The two teams were deadlocked through the first four quarters and it took until the final minute of the first overtime period for the Titans to get the game-winner. With 40 seconds remaining, Reagan Motta would find Lauren Bastien off a corner and the sophomore would bury the goal to send the Titans to the semis.
“We really wanted to score a few goals in the second half but once we got into overtime, we just said, ‘let’s just score this goal and get the win,’” said Bastien, who was thrilled to make an impact as an underclassman. “It’s really cool. I just want to help the seniors continue their season. (Playoff experience) is important. We went into this game thinking it could be tight. We were prepared.”
The Titans had 10 corner attempts between the fourth quarter and the overtime period. Tiverton’s defense held up strong until the Titans finally broke through.
“There were only a couple seconds left so we had to work fast and we had to work hard. We worked a lot of corners at practice and I just remember getting the ball and I saw Lauren who finished it,” said Motta.
Although Tiverton stayed aggressive throughout the second half and set up a few scoring chances, the Titans also played shutout defense to push the game to overtime.
“We just had to persevere and keep going. We knew we were good enough, so we just had to keep moving forward. We were a little nervous, but we knew we could do it,” said Motta.
The Titans fell in the semifinals last year and returned a handful of key seniors in 2024. However, much of the Toll Gate roster is set to return next year, including players like Bastien, Motta, Delanie Wheeler, Emerson Wheeler and goalie Abby O’Connor. Toll Gate will be graduating seniors Avry Dewar, Kate Whelan and Olivia Bradford.
Pilgrim finished the season 1-16. Lily Farrell, Asia Jean-Baptiste, Abigail Killilea and Jocelyn Dilone will be in the mix next season while the Pats will be graduating Gracelynn Ferreira and Taylor Mark.