WEARE – John Stark’s senior forward, Michaela Niquette, scored a hat-trick with three potent shots that rattled the back of the cage in Stark’s 5-0 win over Pembroke on senior night to finish the regular season.

“Are you kidding me? All I have to say is that girl came out of nowhere today and showed up, and she’s a scrappy player, and that’s where she should be for positioning-wise, and I learned that today,” said Stark’s first-year head coach, Cassidy Huckins.

The Generals field hockey team finished third in the Division II standings with an overall record of 13-3 and will move on to the playoffs as the No. 3 seed.

“Lots of progress throughout the season,” Huckins said. “For sure, our passing up the field has improved immensely. I can see it. They all see it each game we’ve played the past three or four games, our passing has been on point. So I think going to the playoffs, that’ll be huge to our advantage. Got to work on our corners.”

Pembroke, on the other hand, is now stuck in a three-way tie for 10th place with Lebanon and Pelham, all with a 5-9-2 record, but all three will go through to the preliminary round of the postseason tournament.

“We’re playing a year-round, very strong team today, and, except for the very beginning, I thought we did pretty well. We were a little slow starting, but after that first quarter, we were generating at least a few chances against them,” said head coach Steve Langevin.

Defensively, Pembroke faced 17 corners and 24 shots and held well despite Stark’s strong attack, but had difficulty creating many chances of attack in transition and near the circle.

“We have a core, a core of our team is back next year, we’re losing a couple of people, but our big group is our juniors. So they made a lot of strides this year, so we’re looking forward to them you know they do that again next year and take another step forward,” said Langevin.

The NHIAA will release field hockey tournament brackets on Monday. Division II prelims are scheduled for Tuesday.