YARMOUTH — Marcia Wood isn’t the biggest fan of having field hockey game on Mondays, since it can throw a wrench into the practice schedule. But on Freeport’s first of many Monday afternoon games this season, the Falcons did just fine.

Freeport used a smothering defense in the midfield and on the wings to beat Gray-New Gloucester/NYA 6-1. Four different players scored for the Falcons, as senior Emily Groves and sophomore Briella Boudreau each tallied two goals.

“It took us a little bit of time to score one — not much, but I feel like once we score, then we can get the ball rolling,” Wood said. “And it was nice to have so many different scorers today. That’s kind of what our goal has been.”

Freeport moves to 2-0 this season, while Gray-New Gloucester/NYA starts 0-1.

Junior forward Megan Ritz started the scoring 6 minutes, 32 seconds into the game off a feed from Lilliana Larochelle. Ritz found Groves early in the second quarter to double the visitors’ lead.

Groves spent the first half stopping any GNG/NYA advance down the left side of the field, gathering the ball and tearing towards the opposing goal. The Patriots struggled to get past midfield for a majority of the first three quarters. They eventually started testing the right side.

“GNG had one breakaway at the very beginning of the game, and that’s when we were like, ‘OK, we need to reset, we need to come out strong,'” Groves said. “And I think that that was just what we needed. From then on, our defense played amazing.”

Freeport was 1 of 7 on penalty corners. The only successful attempt came two seconds before halftime when Briella Boudreau rebounded and redirected a saved shot to give Freeport a 3-0 lead.

“Honestly, I don’t really remember much,” Boudreau said. “But, yeah, there was a lot of back and forth in front of the cage, and so I saw an opening and took it.”

The initial shot came from the left side of the circle, where the ball was shortly inserted. Freeport struggled to convert a corner when the ball was inserted to the top of the circle.

“We have a very strong four that we use on our defensive corners,” Gray-New Gloucester/NYA coach Julia Leary said. “The four of them work really well together, they communicate very well together inside that circle. Our fly and our trail especially work very well, Lydia Trytek and Abby Lacombe, and they just do a phenomenal job just really closing down those offensive corners for other teams.”

Sophomore Mallory Kulas, playing her first career field hockey game, helped with 12 saves for the Patriots. Maddie Kryzek saved one shot for the Falcons.

The Patriots capitalized on their one offensive corner of the day, when Trytek found Layla Whitman for a quick tap-in at 12:48 left in the fourth quarter.

Senior forward Sophia Brown scored Freeport’s fourth goal 3:02 into the third quarter, and Groves scored her second 1:01 into the fourth.

With an assist from Callie Bourgoin, Boudreau stamped the final score at 6-1 with 3:33 left in the game.