The Dartmouth High girls field hockey team opened its regular season strong with a win at New Bedford High on September 5.

Throughout the game, the Indians held back the Whalers long enough to earn a shutout 7-0 win, with four goals occurring in the second half of the game alone.

Although excited to have opened the season with a win, Head Coach Beth Arguin noted New Bedford isn’t a particularly tough team to face due to a lack of strong juniors and seniors.

“Last year they were pretty strong, but this year they’ve lost a lot of kids it seems,” Arguin said. “They have a young group.”

Depsite that, the first game of the season was a chance to see if her coaching in the preseason has been effective, and what needs improvement going forward. During the game against New Bedford, she noticed several third-party obstruction calls due to player positioning – minor things that can easily be worked on.

As for strengths, she’s already seeing an offensive power the team lacked last year.

“We have a lot of aggressive forwards that want to put the ball in the goal,” Arguin said. “We lacked that last year, so putting that together this year is helping.”

Arguin is already eyeing the team’s matchup against Bishop Stang as a particularly tough opponent.

“It’s going to be a test to see where we might end up in the future,” Arguin said.