AUBURN – Sometimes you have to step backward before you move forward.

The Edward Little girls’ soccer team hoped to progress in tournament play Wednesday and end a five-year playoff drought. A stunning 1-0 loss to Messalonskee in overtime altered that course.

“We took a huge step forward this year the way we’ve been playing and how much we had improved,” said EL coach Val Brown. “Unfortunately, this is the half-step back we have to take in order to become a better team.”

The seventh-ranked Red Eddies (9-5-1) dominated much of their Eastern A preliminary game but were unable to finish. It was the 10th-seeded Eagles (6-9) that broke the stalemate with 1:54 left in the first overtime.

“I told them at halftime that soccer is all about results,” said Messalonskee coach Mike Guarino. “There’s no style points. You don’t get a perfect-10. You get a 1-0. I told them to ‘stay together and stay with the plan. Fight for each other, and we’re going to score a goal.’ They stayed with our game plan. They never lost their shape defensively, and they fought for stuff.”

Hannah Jalette put a cross in front of the net. EL’s keeper Kirsten Prue came out to intercept, but Katie Grenier was there to chip it into the goal.

“It happened so fast,” said Grenier, a junior midfielder. “Somebody played a nice ball. I was just there and finished. I was at the right place at the right time.”

EL has just two seniors and had made great strides after an early playoff exit last year. Players like Emily Grund, Abby Downs, Hanna Mogensen, Hannah Kessler and Deanna Morency produced efforts that helped fuel the pressure up front.

“I told the girls that it was the epitome of our season,” said Brown. “We went from a 5-9-1 team to a team in the beginning of the year that was focused on scoring and becoming an offensive team because we’d always been thought of as a defensive team, and that hurt us. Now the last 35 or 40 minutes, was all us attacking and all us forming attacks and putting the pressure up and getting the good opportunities.

“The difference was instead of finishing, we settled. We had all the aggressiveness and initiative through two-thirds of the field. Then at the top of the attacking third, we gave up on it. We didn’t have that extra touch to place the ball.”

EL outshot Messalonskee in the first half 7-2. Danielle Paul had a shot off passes from Alice Read and Katelyn St. Hilaire. Both Read and St. Hilaire had quality bids as well.

“We had some great attacks, great opportunities and amazing individual performances at times,” said Brown. “Ultimately it came down to one quirky ball that bounced the right way.”

In the second half, the Eagles balanced things out. Grenier had a chance off a corner, and Jalette had a header that went over the net. Chelsea Corbett had a shot from the left side saved by Prue.

“We’re usually a second half team, and we definitely stepped it up,” said Grenier. “We knew they were going to come at us hard. Our plan was to come out harder.”

EL pressed in the second half and got chances from St. Hilaire and Frankie Lally, but the longer the Red Eddies failed to score, the longer it benefited the Eagles.

EL picked up the pace in overtime. Alyssa Levesque and St. Hilaire created shots, but it was on a counter in the closing minutes that gave Messalonskee the break it needed. EL had been wary of Alison Omsberg in the middle and her ability to feed the Eagles counter attack. She won the ball in the middle and got it up to the right side to Corbett. She fed Jalette, who crossed it in front.

“I knew I had to shoot it,” said Grenier. “I knew once it left my foot that it was going in.”