By PAUL J. SPETRINI
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SOUTH KINGSTOWN—It’s one thing to say you’re ready for the playoffs, it’s quite another to show it.
Wednesday afternoon, the South Kingstown girls field hockey team did both and, with a dominant 1-0 win over Classical that wasn’t nearly as close as the final score would lead you to believe, the Rebels not only looked the part of a playoff contender, they looked the part of a team ready to make a substantial march right through the postseason.
South Kingstown’s Mackenzie Iemma scored the one and only goal the Rebels would need Wednesday, knocking in a pass from teammate Amy Babcock with 8:06 to play in the second half as SK improved to 8-3-3 on the season with an impressive victory over the now 7-6-1 playoff-bound Purple.
“They did a really good job against a team that was really aggressive and really plugged the middle of the field well.” SK coach Margaret McGregor said.

For more, read the 10/16 edition of the Narragansett Times

By ERIC RUEB
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NORTH KINGSTOWN – The South Kingstown boys soccer team looked great Tuesday night against North Kingstown.
The Rebels controlled the pace of play. They won 50-50 balls, played aggressively, made good runs and took great shots.
But the one thing SK didn’t do, North had no problem doing – finding the net.
While South may have outplayed the Skippers on the field, the Rebels heard more clangs and bangs than someone dropping silverware down a set of stairs as North Kingstown converted nearly every chance it had in a 4-1 win over South.
Walking off the field, South coach Scott Rollins was more baffled than disappointed.
“The score was obviously not what we wanted it to be but I thought we played really good soccer. I thought in that second half we really controlled the play,” Rollins said. “It’s a weird sport where if you don’t capitalize on opportunities, that’s what happens.”

For more, read the 10/16 edition of the Narragansett Times

By ERIC RUEB
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HARRISVILLE –Driving nearly 50 miles north to play a smaller, scrappy Burrillville, South Kingstown girls volleyball coach Jackie Fagan thought if her team played a solid game, they’d have no problem leaving with a win.
If.
The Rebels struggled to find consistency and every time they took one step in the right direction, it was two, or three, or four steps back as they couldn’t overcome their own mistakes in a 25-23, 25-20, 22-25, 25-23 loss to Burrillville Wednesday night.
“We had moments but too many unforced errors,” Fagan said after the match. “It’s kind of been the story of the season for us. It’s become a pattern now and the girls are feeling it, like Oh no, we’re doing it again. It’s tough to break that.”

For more, read the 10/16 edition of the Narragansett Times

By BRANDEN MELLO
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PROVIDENCE — The coaching of Dan Greene, the defense of libero Paige Williams and the hitting of Emily Caswell, Kellie Welsh, Kristen Rameika, Adrian Pendergast and Nicole Peacock make Prout one of the best volleyball teams in the state.
But what separates the Crusaders from every team in the state – and that includes two-time defending state champion La Salle – is junior setter Elise Walsh.
Walsh, who was a second-team all-stater last year when Prout won its third consecutive Division II crown, has made the seamless transition to Division I. Tuesday night against those talented Rams, Walsh had what Greene called the junior’s best match of the season.
In just three games, Walsh dished out 44 assists to her vast array of targets. But, what made Walsh so brilliant Tuesday night was the speed she played with. The junior ran quick attacks to Peacock in the middle and then, without looking, played perfect back sets to Pendergast on the right side.
In a match that showed how superior the Crusaders are to the rest of the division, Prout didn’t allow La Salle to earn a kill in the first set as the Crusaders swept the Rams 25-13, 25-22, 25-20 to move to 12-0 in Division I-South. The Rams are now 10-2 in I-North.
“Elise put the ball in such sweets spots tonight and she made such good choices with who to give the ball to where and when,” Greene said. “This was probably her best night of the season. These hitters do realize it because they play other arenas and they know they have a real gem dishing them the ball.
“She’s got great footwork. She’s got great desire and great work ethic. She puts all that together. She’s got great training and that’s just a winning combination for her.”

For more, read the 10/16 edition of the Narragansett Times

By ERIC RUEB
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LINCOLN – The plan was to win.
Sometimes the best-laid plans don’t always work – but in the case of the North Kingstown girls volleyball team, it’s OK.
The Skippers had quite a showing at Monday’s 16th Annual Koch Eye Volleyball Tournament at CCRI-Lincoln, dominating pool play and earning a top seed for the championship tournament, but fell in the semifinals to East Providence, 21-25, 25-17, 15-5.
“Certainly it wasn’t the way I wanted to end the afternoon, but we had a great day,” NK coach Vicki Tefft said after the loss. “… You’re never happy when you don’t achieve your goal and our goal was to get to the finals and it’s still our goal – to get the to finals on Nov. 14. so we’re going to keep working toward it.”

For more, read the 10/15 edition of the Standard

By KEVIN RYDER
Special to the Times

CRANSTON – For fans of the North Kingstown football team, it probably looked like déjà vu. Cranston West controlled the ball in the first quarter, using over eight minutes to score its first touchdown of the game and the Falcons never looked back, posting a dominating 33-6 victory over the Skippers at Cranston Stadium.
A week earlier on their home turf, the Skippers (0-4 Division I, 0-5 overall) saw Rogers use its pounding running game to control the ball for most of the game. This time, it was the Falcons, who ran the ball on 14 of the 15 plays on that opening drive to go 55 yards for what proved to be the game-winning touchdown.
“For me, I am an offensive lineman,” said Cranston West head coach Steve Stoehr, who played the position in his playing days. “Eight minutes and a touchdown to end it? That’s how the game should be played.”
“We knew what they were going to do; they run a similar offense as we do,” said North Kingstown head coach John Horsman. “We knew we were going to get a boatload of ‘belly.’ I told the kids all week to not get off the bus if you can’t stop ‘belly.’ We tried to switch some things up defensively to get into the ‘belly’ hole, but we just couldn’t stop it.”

For more, read the 10/15 edition of the Standard

By PAUL J. SPETRINI
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WEST GREENWICH—There was something different about the Exeter-West Greenwich football team Saturday.
Maybe it was their new quarterback, junior Keleigh Greenhalgh, who came back from being academically ineligible to start the season. Maybe it was the return of linemen James and Andrew Read, playing in their first game of the season for the same reason. Maybe it was the emergence of a balanced offense.
No, wait, that’s not it. The biggest difference about Exeter-West Greenwich Saturday afternoon? They won.
Thanks in large part to a 161-yard day by junior Al Georgio, not to mention the 16 carry, 100-yard, three touchdown performance of senior Adam Sweeney, EWG posted its first victory of the season with a 30-6 dismantling of Scituate.
Saturday’s win was about much more than a simple ‘W’ for Exeter-West Greenwich. For the first time all season, the Knights looked like a football team, played like a football team and hit like a football team.
And it couldn’t have come at a better time. Exeter has a pair of league games coming up against winless opponents North Providence and PCD/Wheeler in the next three weeks. With Saturday’s victory over a proven competitor under their belts, the Knights may well be poised to make a run back into playoff contention.
“Well, it’s a big win for us,” EWG coach Mike Messier said. “How long we can ride this, it depends upon what type of team shows up next week and this is a big game for us in more ways than one. It puts us at 1-2 and it shows the rest of the league that, you know what? Maybe it was just a glitch that we had.”

For more, read the 10/15 edition of the Standard

By PAUL J. SPETRINI
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NORTH KINGSTOWN—The North Kingstown field hockey team has just two games remaining this season and, with a one-goal win over previously undefeated Bay View last weekend, it would be easy for the Skippers to coast into the postseason resting on their laurels, confident they’ll be able to play their best when they need to.
To do so, however, NK will have to ignore how they’ve fared this week.
Despite outshooting Tiverton 27-0 Monday night, the Skippers came away with a 2-0 victory over the winless Tigers and, Tuesday night, North fell to Moses Brown 2-1 as Quaker goalie Janie Lupica stopped 10 of 11 shots.
So, what’s the moral of the story?
Well, for NK, clearly you’re only as good as your latest game and if the Skippers are going to be real state title contenders this season, they’ll need to play a better brand of field hockey, regardless of past accomplishments.
“I saw a lot of scoring opportunities which I think we needed to capitalize on,” NK coach Julie Maguire said Monday night after the Skippers defeated Tiverton. “We had 20 offensive penalty corners and only scoring two goals is a little disappointing, but a win is a win at this point.”

For more, read the 10/15 edition of the Standard

By ERIC RUEB
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NORTH KINGSTOWN – There was something noticeably different in the North Kingstown boys soccer team that took the field Tuesday night against South Kingstown and the one that played back on Sept. 1 and the players knew it.
“Our morale is better. We finally got our lineup together,” North’s Andy Hess said. “We’re playing more feet and working together as a team. We were working way too individual in the first game.”
With its parts finally working as one after a slow start to the season, North made the most of its opportunities Tuesday night as Hess scored three times and goalkeeper Thomas Mulligan did his best to keep SK off the scoreboard in the Skippers 4-1 win.
“Everyone kept saying ‘you must be young, you must be young,’ but we have a lot of senior leaders,” NK coach Kyle Froberg said. “It’s just those kids maybe didn’t play as much last year and they’re now getting that game experience and that gamesmanship, so to speak, and just know how to win now. Not to say it’s a finished product by any means, but we made the most of our opportunities (Tuesday) and we’re normally a team that doesn’t do that.”

For more, read the 10/15 edition of the Standard

By ERIC RUEB
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NORTH KINGSTOWN – Playing at No. 3 doubles, cousins Isabel O’Brien and Megan O’Brien don’t get a chance to play a lot of complete matches.
It has nothing to do with the duo’s abilities. By the time the two usually hit the court, a winner has been decided and the temperature has dropped 15 degrees, so No. 3 plays a full first set, then a super tiebreak for the second and third, if needed.
Tuesday was a different scenario.
“I told them at the beginning,” NK coach Jacques Faulise said, “… we won’t need to do that because we need you to finish the match.”
And as much as they tried to avoid the score between the teams, Isabel and Megan knew what was on the line and came through for the Skippers, winning their match 6-2, 6-3, giving NK a much-needed win over Prout.
“We’ve only won twice,” said Isabel about NK, who’s only two wins prior to Tuesday we against South Kingstown, “so it’s good to beat another school.”
“It was a huge one against them and this was an important match for us in that last year we won two matches,” Faulise said, “so now we won one more than last year, which is great for us, kind of a goal to win at least one more.”

For more, read the 10/15 edition of the Standard