LEWISTON – The Oxford Hills Vikings found out you can’t fall asleep when defending Laura Martel. If you do, it’s lights out.
For 79 minutes and 33 seconds, the Vikings limited the high-scoring Lewiston forward to just a few harmless touches. In a matter of a few seconds, however, Martel dribbled through four defenders and blistered a shot past Viking keeper Samantha Rivers with just 27 ticks left on the clock to give the Blue Devils a 2-1 win in a KVAC girls’ soccer match at Don Roux Field Tuesday night.
Marked by Terry Bunce for the entire match, Martel was given little room to operate. With the clock winding down, Allison Morin booted the ball into the Vikings’ end of the field. With the ball in traffic, out came Martel out of the pack. Bunce forced her wide left, but Martel cut back inside and weaved her way back to the middle of the field. After getting the ball onto her right foot, she fired a low liner into the net.
“(Bunce) dogged Martel well all game long,” said Oxford Hills coach Kyle Morey. “On the one play she needed help from her teammates, she didn’t get it.”
“You have to play hard until the buzzer sounds, and we did,” said Martel. “I got the ball at my feet and I had to beat the three girls. The goalie was out of position. She gave me too much space and I put it through.”
The match certainly wasn’t easy for the undefeated Blue Devils (4-0) as the Vikings (0-3-1) dominated the first half, outshooting the home team 13-5 and outscoring them 1-0.
Whitney Linindoll got things rolling for the Vikings when she stole the ball from Lea Chouinard, the Blue Devils’ stopper, and carried the ball down the right wing. She then lofted a high arching shot over the head of freshman keeper Katie Cobb (16 saves). The goal was the first given up by Cobb after registering three consecutive shutouts.
The rest of the half saw the Vikings putting multiple shots on Cobb from in close. Twice the freshman leaped high in the air to deflect away shots heading for the top shelf area. The first came off the foot of Jenny Pietroski midway through the half. In the latter stages of the half, Cobb turned in a similar save.
“She’s aggressive,” said Lewiston coach Rick Meyers. “She doesn’t play at a freshman level. She puts herself in the right position all the time.”
At halftime, the match turned in Lewiston’s favor. Its offense turned up the pressure and carried the play throughout. Lewiston fired 13 shots toward the Oxford Hills net and had nine corner kicks. The pendulum had swung in favor of the home team.
“We knew they were beating us to all the balls,” said Meyers of the first half. “They have more speed than us and seemed to have two girls on every ball.”
The Blue Devils tied the game with 35:16 left in the match on a corner kick from Martel. Her booming kick from the left corner hooked toward the goal and deflected off a defender into the net.
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