Lewiston suffers its first loss of the season.
LEWISTON – In less than a minute, the Lewiston girls’ soccer team watched their season end.
Bangor scored a pair of second-half goals in a span of 57 seconds to hand the Blue Devils their first loss of the year, a 2-0 defeat in Tuesday’s Eastern Class A semifinal.
Serena Dubois and Laura Clarke teamed up on both goals to send the Rams to their first girls’ soccer regional final game Saturday.
“We were worried about those three,” Lewiston coach Rick Meyers said of Bangor’s trio up front of Dubois, Clarke and Kristin Bogan. “We were really worried about them from the get-go. We knew they had a lot of speed.”
Lewiston (14-1-1) spent much of the game holding off Bangor’s pressure. Though the Blue Devils had some quality scoring bids early, Bangor did a fine job limiting Lewiston’s offense in the second half.
“We didn’t put a lot of shots on their goalkeeper,” said Meyers. “That’s something we wanted to do. We wanted to test their keeper, but their defense really stepped up.”
Missing midfielder Katie Morin (illness) didn’t help Lewiston’s cause. Her absence stood out in the transition game and up front, where her throw-ins and ability to set up the forwards were successful all season.
“They really beat us to a lot of balls,” said Meyers. “That’s something we’re not really accustomed to. We missed a lot of midfield play. They were taking the balls away from us, and we were back on our heels.”
A quick transition from the midfield led to the first goal with 7:51 left in the game. Clarke intercepted an attempted clearing pass and quickly fed Dubois on the left wing.
“That’s what we’ve been practicing: Their sweeper,” Clarke said. “We knew she’s tough. We knew she’s coming at us. So we knew we had to pass around her, and we’ve been practicing our give-and-gos.”
Dubois, whose combination of speed and size made life miserable for Lewiston defenders, manuevered by a Blue Devil and moved in on keeper Beth Melanson, slipping a shot underneath the Lewiston goaltender.
“I knew I could beat her because I’d been beating her,” said Dubois. “I just put it to her bad side, and I put it underneath the goalie and it went in.”
Before Lewiston even had a chance to regroup, Bangor made it 2-0 with 6:54 left. This time it was Dubois on the right wing. She crossed a ball to the front where Clarke redirected it in.
“We’ve been doing that all year,” said Clarke. “We have a lot of quickness up front, and we take advantage of it pretty well.”
Though Bangor (14-1-2) had the territorial edge in the first half, with five corners to none, Lewiston had the prime scoring threats.
Laura Martel had two bids on the Blue Devils first two shots, both saved by Ilyse Angst. Midway through the half, Martel had a pair of dead balls that were nearly redirected in. Allie Morin tipped one that Angst barely saved. Kelsey Varney had another redirection that was stopped. Both Martel and Varney had nice shots late in the half, but Lewiston struggled to produce pressure in the second half.
“They really shut down Laura Martel,” said Meyers. “She just never seemed to get it going. We didn’t have anybody running off of her. Usually if they’re marking her, one of the others will step up. I think their pressure was the difference in the game.”
kmills@sunjournal.com
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