AUBURN – Despite being on the wrong end of a 27-5 shot discrepancy, St. Dom’s felt it had sufficient opportunities to take control early in Tuesday’s important Western Maine Conference soccer match with five-time defending state champion North Yarmouth Academy.

Unfortunately for the Saints, Courtney Dumont and Emily Mitchell were there for NYA to make them pay for the missed opportunities.

Dumont and Mitchell solved an energetic St. Dom’s defense long enough to set each other up on NYA’s goals and for a 2-1 win.

The Panthers improved to 6-6. St. Dom’s, which held the 10th and final Western C playoff spot in the most recent Heal Point standings, dropped to 4-7-1.

“I keep telling them soccer’s easy – you mark the open man and you run to the open space, and I thought that’s what we did really well today,” NYA coach Elayna Zachko said.

Zachko’s defenders marked the Saints well in the middle and helped each other out on open players to offset some of their speed. At the other end, the Saints didn’t give any of the Panthers, but particularly Dumont, many chances to finding open space. When they did, though, they took advantage.

Dumont scored all three goals in NYA’s 3-1 win over the Saints late last month, so coach Cathy Little assigned Ali Desjardin to mark Dumont. While she was giving up considerable size and strength to the NYA striker, Desjardin more than held her own.

“She did a phenomenal job,” Little said of Desjardin. “Ali’s a very physical player, but she does a very good job of containing the ball and being aggressive.”

When Dumont was able to shake Desjardin, she still had to beat Saints goalie Elise Applegate (12 saves), who handled the rocket shots off Dumont’s right foot fearlessly.

“Courtney is a very dangerous player with a really hard shot, and their goalie was in great position,” Zachko said. “Courtney’s used to being man-marked now. Every game she gets man-marked, sometimes she’s doubled, so she’s been learning how to deal with that and has been adjusting well.”

Erynne Landry gave the Saints a 1-0 lead nearly 16 minutes in, arcing a long shot just over the reach of a leaping Abigail Moss and just under the crossbar. Little was hoping for a little more of a cushion, though.

“We didn’t capitalize on two throw-ins early on in the box, and we had a couple of other ones we should have capitalized on,” Little said.

The Panthers tied it a little more than three minutes later. They got a break when a defender slipped in front of Mitchell on the left wing. Mitchell dribbled around her and launched a high cross to the tall Dumont, who redirected it with the back of her head over Applegate. The goalie hustled to dive back to the goal line in one last-ditch effort to keep the bouncing ball out, but couldn’t quite make it.

Luck was back on the Saints’ side when Alison Carpenter’s bid for the upper-right corner late in the first half bounced high off the post.

That left Mitchell to score the game-winner 11:07 into the second half. Dumont dribbled down the left wing and lofted a perfect pass ahead to Mitchell so she had only Applegate to beat, which she promptly did to the goalie’s right.

The Saints have two games left, both at home, to try to solidify a return to the playoffs.

“We have Fryeburg on Thursday and Freeport on Monday and those are crucial games for us,” Little said.