BRUNSWICK – It wasn’t the way they hoped to start this year’s U.S. Youth Soccer Region I Championships.

After reaching the final in their age group last year, Maine’s U-18 Coastal team hoped to continue that excitement a year later when it kicked off another tournament Friday.

“This game was really all about picking from where we left off last year,” said defender Kendhall Davis, a former standout at Gray-New Gloucester. “A big motivation was our loss from last year. We really wanted to change that. So that’s what we were thinking about coming into this game.”

Instead of taking the fast track toward another shot at the finals, Coastal lost Friday in its preliminary round opener, 2-0, to a team from Eastern Pennsylvania.

“It puts a hitch in our step, but we’ll keep on trying to push through and get out of our group,” said Davis.

This year’s U-18 Coastal squad is predominantly made up of the team that comprised the U-17 club that lost to FC Delco last year. Only two Maine teams have ever reached the finals in the Region 1 Championships. Coastal’s U-14 team lost to Maryland two years ago, and last year’s U-17 Coastal club had its near miss. FC Delco ended Maine’s hopes for a representative in the National Championship with a 1-0 win. Coastal made a late push and even had a penalty kick saved to thwart its comeback hopes.

Coastal’s U-18 team has two new players, but otherwise, it’s the same group that advanced in the tourney last year.

“It feels a little bit different,” said Brunswick’s Sam Kaplan. “There’s more at stake this year. It’s our last year playing together. We’ve played together forever. We’d rather play five games to get through the tournament then finish with three.

Coastal plays again Saturday against Vermont at 4:45 and again Sunday at 1:15 against a New York West club. There are 16 teams in four groups in the U-18 tourney. The winner of each group advances to Monday’s semifinals at 10 a.m.

Coming into the tournament, Coastal was one of the Maine teams most likely to have success, but it struggled at times in its opener. Scarborough’s Eddie Jones had a pair of nice chances early on, but it wasn’t until late in the second half that Coastal began possessing the ball and creating chances. The Eastern Pennsylvania team got a goal midway through the first half after a breakdown defensively. It added a second goal in the final minute after a bad clear with the goaltender caught out of the net.

“You can only ask to create chances,” said Kaplan, who had the potential game-tying penalty shot stopped in the final a year ago. “I felt today, we created chances. We were just unlucky and didn’t put them away. That’s what seems to separate good teams from the great teams. Great teams will put away every chance.”

It was a disappointing start for a team that had such high hopes and last year’s excitement to build on.

“We wanted to come back and have different results from last year,” said Davis. “That was our main goal. Through the season we just tried to play consistent and coming in here, we really wanted to put it away.”

The club played fewer games than it did last year at the U-17 level but having such a large group returning gave the team experience and confidence in what it could achieve.

“We don’t have as much momentum as we had last year, but we still have high hopes and confidence,” said Davis. “Having the same team returning helps a lot. We were really excited about coming in and having a repeat performance.”

Of course, success from last year doesn’t necessarily guarantee the same a year later. That’s something the team tried to keep in mind and witnessed Friday morning in defeat.

“(Last year) is always in the back of your mind, but at the same time, it’s a completely different team,” said Kaplan. “Everyone is a year older. It’s a different group of teams. You sort of have to look at it like a whole new animal and figure out how to handle it.”