AUBURN – St. Dom’s freshman Mary Lewis may not have been used to the intensity of a Western Class C playoff game before Tuesday’s quarterfinal tilt against Lisbon, but she was a quick study.
Lewis knocked in her second goal of the game on the Saints’ fourth penalty corner on a perfect tic-tac-toe play from Michela Fyler and Elisha Dorso to lift No. 2 St. Dom’s to a thrilling 3-2 win over the Greyhounds.
“I was really kind of frightened,” said Lewis, who stood motionless with her mouth agape after her drive that ended the game slammed into the plywood on the bottom of the goal cage. “We had to do it on that one. We hadn’t scored on our last three tries.”
“I was shocked, too,” added Fyler, who set up the goal by passing the ball back to Dorso after the initial hit. “I didn’t even know we had won the game.”
One player who did know immediately – and showed it by jumping 2 feet off the ground at midfield – was St. Dom’s freshman keeper Austyn Carolin. She stopped 13 shots in the win, including one down the stretch off her right toe when she lunged to the right like an ice hockey goaltender protecting the low corner.
“That was just a spastic movement,” said Carolin with a laugh. “All game, though, the defense was there the whole time to back me up. It was a little more intense than the regular season. I learned that really quick.”
Dorso started the Saints’ fourth corner, after two overtimes failed to break the 2-2 tie, with a push to Fyler. Fyler sent the ball back to Dorso low to the left of the cage, and she in turn sent the ball to Lewis, who was waiting in the middle. Lewis shot to the short side and beat Lisbon keeper Rachel Beal.
“They are a very aggressive team,” said Lisbon coach Mark Stevens. “They are a very fast team. I think we stepped up to their ability today and played very, very well.”
In fact, Stevens’ young squad had the edge for most of the game, despite being outshot and taking far fewer penalty corners.
“We knew when we first got here, looking at the field, that it was going to be a run-and-gun kind of game,” said Stevens. “We have two gunners and a girl that can hit the ball 100 yards, so we thought we’d be all right.”
Taking St. Dom’s (13-2) by surprise, the seventh-ranked Greyhounds (7-8) scored first, just 1:11 into the game on an Erica Merritt strike on one of those long balls from inside their own 25 by Heather Parry.
St. Dom’s regrouped and answered with 1:08 to play in the opening half when Elisha Dorso startled Beal with a long shot from the left side. Beal dove left but missed.
“Their long drives were big for them,” said Dorso. “We realized after the first half we needed to step back a bit and control the ball first.”
Lisbon regained the lead with 12 minutes to play, again on a goal from Merritt, but two minutes later Lewis potted the Saints’ second goal on a hustle play to the left of the goalmouth to knot the score.
Despite several solid chances for both sides in the two eight-minute overtime periods, neither team could solve the opposing netminder.
St. Dom’s will face Livermore Falls on Saturday in a rematch of last year’s playoff game in which the Andies eliminated the Saints, 5-2.
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