AUBURN – The Red Eddies were ready to play on Wednesday. It just didn’t work out that way.

Heavy rains on Tuesday night left standing pools of water over one whole side of Edward Little’s home field, postponing Wednesday’s preliminary round matchup with No. 10 Old Town by a day. The No. 6 Eddies came out on the winning end of the rescheduled playoff tilt, downing the Coyotes 1-0.

Sophomore midfielder Billy Brewster redirected a corner kick by Eric Prue with 2:46 remaining in the first half, and the play of goalkeeper Josh Mains (eight saves) and the Edward Little defense made that goal stand up as the game-winner. The Eddies bottled up Old Town’s talented scoring threat Dillon Clark and weathered an all-out assault by the Coyotes over the final 10 minutes to advance to the quarterfinals.

“We didn’t move the ball as well today as I would like to see, but I attribute that to them,” said Edward Little coach Dave Morin. “It helped that we played good defense. We didn’t allow them to have a good quality shot in the box.”

The schools do not play each other in the regular season, so the first half was a feeling out process for both teams. The Eddies (9-6-2) quickly learned to keep an eye on Clark, who displayed a knack for moving to the ball and creating scoring opportunities. Clark nearly put Old Town on the board in the 18th minute, firing a direct kick from outside the 18 towards the top of the net. The shot sailed over Maine and hit the crossbar, coming down on the goal line. EL’s defense cleared the ball away from Corey Fournier to end the threat.

“We weren’t going to give (Clark) any space,” said Morin. “Our job was to identify early on who their main scoring threat was and make sure that he was doubled.”

Ben Hartnett had a great opportunity the other way for the Eddies, dialing in a shot at close range from behind Old Town’s fullbacks with just under 17 minutes to play in the half. Coyote keeper Sam Petrie lunged out and batted down with his outstretched hand to save a goal, one of his eight saves in the game.

Edward Little took over late in the first half, winning balls out of the air and turning them up the field for multiple scoring chances. Old Town’s defense bent but did not break until Marc St. Hilaire had a shot tipped over the crossbar by Petrie in the final minutes. That sent Prue out to the left corner to line up a corner kick, with a little advice from Brewster.

“Billy said that he was going to be right at the front post, and I was going right for him, hoping that he could put it in,” said Prue. “He kicked it in off the back of his heel.”

The Eddies came out of the break looking for an insurance goal, and continued to pressure Old Town in the early going. As the half wore on, though, the desperation of the Coyotes won out, and the ball stayed in EL’s end. Ben Costello put a rocket shot just over the crossbar with 3:50 remaining, and midfielder Mike Lutz broke up a chance by Clark in front of the net with two minutes to play to preserve the win.

The victorious Eddies will have a couple of days to prepare for their quarterfinal matchup with Bangor on Saturday at 1 p.m. The Rams are another team that Edward Little has not played and will need to figure out on the fly. Morin asked Old Town coach Mark Graffam how he thought the Eddies might match up with Bangor.

“He said that they’re real tough. They’re very fast, and they possess the ball well,” said Morin. “We can do that too, but we didn’t today. It should be an interesting game.”