Cony’s Casey Monson, left, and Abby Morrill defend Leavitt’s Addison Twitchell during the first half of a Class B North field hockey semifinal game Saturday in Augusta. Mike Mandell/Morning Sentinel

AUGUSTA — For a while, it almost felt like fate was unfolding for the reigning Class B North champion Cony field hockey team on this cold, dreary Saturday morning in the state capital.

Leading 1-0 most of the game, the Rams were nearing a chance to defend their regional title — and the right to do so on their own turf. Unfortunately for Cony, the Hornets had other ideas, scoring two second-half goals to earn a 2-1 win in a regional semifinal at Fuller Field.

Addie Twitchell’s goal on a penalty stroke with 3:06 to go sent Leavitt to into the Class B North title game back at Cony High School. Ainsley Barry added the first goal for the Hornets with 4:29 left in the third quarter after Caroline Hendrickson had scored for the Rams in the first.

“We always come in a little bit soft — I don’t know why — and we became complacent; we started to play their game and not our game,” said Leavitt head coach Cathy Marston. “We just regrouped at half, and I said, ‘Ladies, this is yours to win.’ They needed to come back out and play Leavitt hockey, and they did.”

Leavitt put second-seeded Cony (12-4) on the back foot in the first few minutes, winning two penalty corners and controlling the ball in the home team’s half. With 10 minutes left in the opening quarter, though, Hendrickson found the cage off the Rams’ own penalty corner to give Cony the early lead.

Little came in the way of scoring chances for the rest of the half with Cony’s Courtney Ramage making a big save to stop the only clear-cut chance. Yet No. 3 Leavitt (13-2-1) gathered momentum in the second half, and with 4:29 to go in the third quarter, Barry scored from close range to tie the game.

With both teams failing to convert chances in the fourth, it seemed for a while that overtime was looming. But with just over three minutes left, Leavitt was awarded a stroke after Ramage was ruled to have covered up the ball on a corner, and Twitchell rifled the shot to Ramage’s right for the winning goal.

“(I had) all the confidence in her,” Marston said of Twitchell. “That’s why I was yelling so hard for a stroke because I knew for sure that she was going to put it in for us. She went up there and buried it; there was no doubt.”