Audette tallies 100th career point, Kian Roy posts hat trick as Belchertown field hockey beats South Hadley 5-1

SOUTH HADLEY — Ahead 1-0 late in the second quarter, the Belchertown field hockey team was eyeing some insurance right before halftime to double its lead against a pesky South Hadley team. The Orioles were awarded a penalty corner, and head coach Dina Brunetti instructed her players to run a set play they had been working on in practice.

Mya Philpott started it by passing the ball in to Kina Roy, who quickly swung it over to senior Edith Audette — standing all by herself just inside the circle. Audette, who entered Tuesday’s contest needing one point to reach 100 for her career, wound up and blasted a shot.

She connected with it perfectly, and it whistled through traffic and smacked the board in the back of the goal to put Belchertown ahead 2-0 with 12 seconds to go until halftime. More importantly, it helped Audette hit the century mark.

Audette’s milestone and Kian Roy’s hat trick helped the Orioles go on to win 5-1 and improve to an impressive 11-2-1 on the season.

“It was really exciting,” Audette said. “I’ve been looking forward to this since last year when I learned I could do it. I definitely couldn’t have done it without my team and both my coaches, Dina [Brunetti] and Laura [Cote]. They definitely got me here this season. My whole family is here too, so I was really hoping I got it today. And I did, so it was the perfect moment.”

What made it even sweeter were the three players involved in the play. Philpott is a co-captain with Audette, and Kina Roy and Audette have been inseparable since their first time taking the field together.

When Audette’s rocket of a shot went in, she jumped straight in Roy’s arms and the two shared a long embrace. Philpott soon joined them as did the rest of the Belchertown team, which fired confetti on the sidelines and had banners and flowers for Audette.

“It was a great goal because Mya and Kina got the double assist on it,” Audette said. “I’m so glad I got to do it with this team, this year. I love this team so much. It’s what I look forward to every single day. Kina has been my partner in crime since she came here last year, so her getting an assist on it was awesome.”

Kian Roy got the scoring started early in the second quarter with a a nice finish in front off a feed from Julia Rainaud. Midway through the third, Kian Roy netted another — this time coming off a one-timer that sailed into the goal. Jocelyn McMahon picked up the assist.

After a South Hadley goal from Lily Harrington (assisted by Sam Harrison), Roy added his third tally of the game to put the Orioles in the driver’s seat. This one came with just over five minutes left in the fourth quarter and was assisted by Gianna Zenon. Rainaud rounded out the scoring with three minutes to go on a goal assisted by Madeline Williams to make it 5-1 in favor of the visitors.

“We’ve had the hard coach talk of like, ‘Pull it together now or practices are going to be harder than they already are,'” Belchertown head coach Dina Brunetti said. “And so coming out today, that first quarter, I don’t know what happened on the 20-minute bus ride [but] they came out with cement in their shoes. But after that, I was like OK, here is my team. We found out the field isn’t cut in half and we started playing.”

The score may have looked one-sided, but South Hadley had its chances down 3-1 in the fourth. The Tigers were knocking on the door for a good two minutes straight looking to cut their deficit in half. But each time goalie Lila Roy and the Orioles defense found a way to clear the ball out of harm’s way.

Despite playing one of the best teams in the area and falling behind early, South Hadley head coach Nicole Casolari was pleased with her group’s effort on Tuesday.

“I’m ecstatic,” she said. “The conversation we just had as a team was about our mindset going into games like this, and in the tough situations we [dig] ourselves out. We’re a young team, so that ability to figure out both individually and as a team, what that looks like is definitely a focus for us right now especially the latter part of the season and going into postseason.”

After a handful of years as a junior varsity program only, the Tigers are back at the varsity level and having a tremendous season. South Hadley is 8-4 and knocking on the doorstep of both the Western Massachusetts and state tournaments.

A six-game winning streak earlier this year has been the highlight of its campaign so far.

“The word I’ve been using this season is purpose,” Casolari said. “Everything should have a purpose. And we still can work on that and fine tune some of our small skills, but I’d say as a team, we’ve made strides.”

South Hadley (8-4) travels to Northampton on Friday for a game with the Blue Devils while Belchertown (11-2-1) next plays on Thursday at Holyoke.