The Nansemond River field hockey team defeated visiting King’s Fork Wednesday in overtime, 2-1, in both teams’ final game of the regular season.

The Lady Warriors (7-6-2, 7-2) will move on to play in the district playoffs next week. While the Lady Bulldogs (4-10, 1-8) will not, they showed themselves to be much improved and finished the season with a strong showing.

King’s Fork took a 1-0 lead into halftime on a goal by junior midfielder Kana Hashigami.

“We controlled the ball most of that first half,” Nansemond River head coach Ali Mowry said. “King’s Fork got a good breakaway, got a corner off of it, and then capitalized on that corner.”

Mowry was happy to be the winner, but was not greatly encouraged by the game.

“I don’t know if our girls maybe came out there too lightly or just (had) other things on their mind, but a win is a win and we got the job done, but we definitely have to work on some things before playoffs next week,” she said.

Nansemond River took 16 penalty corners compared to King’s Fork’s three, but they were not able to score on most of them.

“They had so many corners, but our defense just kept it out,” Lady Bulldogs first-year head coach Courtney Parmeter said. “We just did our thing. So, it was a pretty good match all around. The girls were upset, teary-eyed, but it really just spoke volumes to just see how well we could do.”

Junior back Madison Janek finally converted on one of the penalty corners midway through the second half off of an assist by senior midfielder Shelbi Holloman.

Overtime did not last long. Parmeter estimated it was about 30 seconds in length when the Lady Bulldogs fell prey to some old habits.

“We tend to give people too much space at times and that’s what happened,” she said. “It got to the point this girl, she got the ball, and we didn’t pressure soon enough, and she just got a shot and it was just a really good shot. She hit the far corner perfectly.”

Holloman started the drive up the field to start the extra period and found freshman center forward Katelynn Hodgkiss, who scored.

“They were all really upset,” Parmeter said of her team. “They were shocked because they really wanted to win, and I could see it.”

Parmeter felt her team has struggled this year because they have not been able to claim a winning identity as a team, but she felt good about their performance, and she met her goal for this season.

“I met my goal, so I was excited, because I wanted to win four games,” she said.

Parmeter admitted that it was difficult to have perspective on her team’s progress throughout the season since she was with them every day, but she took some solace in outside commentary from referees. She also got acclaim from opposing coaches.

“I felt King’s Fork was overall very impressive this year,” Mowry said. “They’ve definitely stepped it up a notch and that’s probably partly due to their coach, Courtney Parmeter.”

The Lady Warriors, ranked second in the district, will likely play Wednesday at the U.S. Field Hockey National Training Center against the winner of Monday’s match-up between the third and sixth seeds.