The Rising Sun field hockey team never had much of a chance in the Class 2A North Region championship game Wednesday against visiting Hereford.
The Cecil County school ran into a Bulls team that dominated play all day for an impressive 8-0 victory as senior attacker Maggie Gutberlet scored two goals.
Hereford (15-1-1) outshot Rising Sun, 17-1, and had a 12-2 edge in penalty corners.
The Bulls are clearly peaking offensively at the right time and have won their last five games by a margin of 33-0, including a 4-0 win over Dulaney in the Baltimore County championship Oct. 16.
Hereford is jumping on teams early in games. That’s something that wasn’t happening in in the first half of the season.
“Early in the season, we took a long time to score immediately in games,” Hereford first-year coach Caitlin MacKenzie said. “It’s something we have been working on. The focus has been to put the ball in the back of the cage to get that momentum early on.”
With the win over Rising Sun (9-5-1), Hereford advances onto the state semifinals to play Glenelg Monday at Paint Branch High in Burtonsville.
The Bulls will be gunning for their third straight state championship game appearance. They lost in the final last year to Century and Atholton in 2012.
“We have the skill, the heart and the work ethic to get there,” said MacKenzie, who served as a Hereford assistant coach from 2010 to 2013. “We have all the tools. We just have to show up that day and play.”
Hereford seemed to find all the open spaces in the defense of Rising Sun.
The Bulls scored 2:31 into play when Emma Reider redirected a hard shot from her sister Lucy past senior goalie Madeleine Hurm (11 saves).
Lucy Reider made it 2-0 with 16 minutes remaining after taking a crisp pass from Maddie Hoover.
Hoover also assisted on the third goal scored by Gutberlet.
Grace Pfarr and Rachel Karwacki added first-half goals for Hereford to make it a running clock in the second half.
Gutberlet, Kailyn Brandt and Haley Jolly scored in the second half.
“One of our biggest skills is one-touch, small passes,” Gutberlet said. “We were definitely connecting on our passes. In games like this, it’s where we come though.”