Kasey Gardiner, Greenhills field hockey shut out Dexter, 6-0, in the Dreadnaughts' first-ever varsity game

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"Last year she was concentrating on her studies and tennis, but now she's back with us and she's a tremendous asset to the team," Greenhills coach Tom Weinfurther said.

In her second game back with the field hockey team, Gardiner put many shots on Dexter's net en route to a career-high three goals.

"I was just using my speed well," explained Gardiner. "And when I saw an opening I took it, usually. And even more so today, I was using passes and working off of the other people's passes after that."

Diana Rosenzweig scored first for the Gryphons (1-0-1), getting her stick on the ball in the midst of a tight group in front of the net.

Almost 20 minutes later, Sarah Lazarsfeld took the ball down the field on a long possession before making a pass to Gardiner, who scored on the Dreadnaughts (0-1) for her first goal of the game.

Gardiner scored again three minutes later. Rosenzweig followed suit with her second goal at 3:25, giving the Gryphons a 4-0 lead they carried to halftime.

"We started out well in the first half," Weinfurther said. "The second half, we got a little complacent. We weren't controlling the midfield enough and we were playing backwards."

Weinfurther said it could have been the comfortable 4-0 lead the Gryphons built that led to their complacent play. He also said his team was tired.

The first serious scoring threat of the second half came when Dexter sophomore Megan Cansfield had two quick shots on Greenhills' Sierra Patton at the 20-minute mark. But Patton was able to kick the ball away from the net and into the possession of the Gryphons defenders, allowing them to clear the ball.

Gardiner's third goal of the game came when she handled the ball down half the field, outrunning several Dexter defenders before taking a shot that was blocked. The junior forward picked up her own rebound and found the net with a shot while running away from the goal.

Lazarsfeld scored the final goal of the game with 11:20 remaining on an assist from Allie Chatas.

Maya Price played the first half of the game in the net for the Gryphons, and Patton finished it out in the second. The two goaltenders saved all seven of the Dreads' shots on goal to share the shutout.

"They both did very well," Weinfurther said of his goalies. "Dexter never stopped playing, and they kept generating opportunities. A goalie has to be on her toes all the time, and we were ready for that and stopped the shots that came through."

Sarah Prielipp made 11 saves for Dexter.

"It's been only three weeks, about 20 days," Dexter coach Craig Flocken said. "We started on August 11, teaching them field hockey. I can say that they've done well for three weeks in this game."

But Flocken said it wasn't just their inexperience that caused the loss Wednesday.

"I don't think we were as aggressive as we probably should have been going to the ball when it was bouncing around inside the circle," Flocken admitted. "We talked to the girls about that. They have to be more aggressive.

"When the ball was bouncing around, it seemed that Greenhills always got the ball and got it out of their zone, and that hurt us."

Josh Coudret can be reached at joshcoudret@annarbor.com.