BELCHERTOWN — Dina Brunetti was having flashbacks of her team’s rock fight of a game with Tantasqua last season during halftime on Wednesday.

The Belchertown field hockey head coach felt her team controlled possession and had plenty of opportunities in that 2-1 win a year ago, and that was certainly the case again on Wednesday. Yet still, the Orioles only held a 1-0 advantage at intermission – a second-quarter tally off the stick of Edith Audette the difference.

“When we finally found the net, I was like OK, we can breathe a little,” Brunetti said. “And I knew we controlled the game, but I’m like, ‘Why can’t we score? Why can’t we score?’”

That quickly changed in the second half, as Belchertown exposed the soft spot in the Warriors’ defense. The Orioles started playing the ball up one side before sending it over to the other, where a wide open player would frequently be standing alone on the back side. Often it would be Kina Roy playing the ball up to Lila Roy or Mya Philpott, who would cross it through the middle – generating several opportunities for Audette & Co. to score.

Belchertown recorded two goals in the third quarter and a pair in the fourth to pull away, overwhelming Tantasqua en route to a 5-0 independent shutout win.

“In the first half, we were playing a lot in the middle. We weren’t using our outsides as much,” Audette, who added her second goal of the contest in the fourth quarter, said. “Second half we realized that [Tantasqua] was pushing us to one side, so we had a whole side open… that was exciting, and we had a lot of people get goals from that and that changed the game.”

When playing for Brunetti, every game is a championship game – and she makes sure her players compete like it.

“I make every game seem like it’s the super, most important game,” she said. “I didn’t know a whole heck of a lot about [Tantasqua], but I knew that last year we had a real tough time scoring… The difference between our first and second half is that we adjusted to how they played.”

Julia Rainaud – who was pulled up from junior varsity for Wednesday’s game – put home the first goal of the second half for Belchertown, followed by a Philpott tally to make it 3-0. Audette scored her second midway through the fourth, and Kian Roy – also pulled up from JV – capped off the scoring.

Addi DiBona, Molly Mazzaferro, Lila Roy (two) and Rachel Baltazar all dished out assists in what was an outing where seemingly everyone contributed for the hosts.

“It’s so exciting,” Brunetti said of Rainaud and Kian Roy’s goals, the firsts in their varsity careers. “One of them jumped in the sky. It’s so exciting. And one was within 30 seconds of them going out there. When you see the same people racking up the points, what fun is that? So when new names [are contributing], it’s always nice to see.”

In the midfield, it was advantage Orioles for four quarters straight. The ball rarely got through the trio of Philpott, DiBona and Kina Roy. Each of them are as solid as it gets at the position. They’re great with their sticks and can handle the ball in traffic no problem while being connectors from the defense to the offense.

Philpott and DiBona were on the team in 2023, but Kina Roy is new as she steps in for Laura Cote – who graduated and is now the head coach of the JV squad. All three of them make quick, smart decisions on when and where to go with the ball, and that was on display on Wednesday.

“We lost a senior midfield and pulled in a freshman midfielder who has 10 points already,” Brunetti said of Kina Roy. “She controls the field differently than Laura did. Laura had this strong drive, Kina can move around these players. Mya is solid out there, and Addi on the other side. Our midfield is so solid.”

Another area in which Belchertown had the upper hand in? The playing surface.

Tantasqua plays on turf; Belchertown on grass. The Warriors struggled to adjust, as they continued to send the ball with big swings thinking it would get all the way down the other end of the field. However the ball dies rather quickly in grass. That gave a big time edge to the Orioles, as they continued to move the ball with quick passes.

“The turf moves so much faster, and it’s so much easier to move,” Audette said. “We’re used to [grass]. Teams who practice on turf, you can definitely tell in the way they play because they’ll try to hit it up the field more instead of using their dribbling and everything. Because on turf, you’re used to it just flying down the field, but here that’s not gonna happen. Definitely being on grass is an advantage for us.”

Belchertown (5-1) is eyeing its second three-game winning streak of the season, but it’ll first have to defeat Holyoke next Tuesday at 6 p.m.