Not many playoff-bound field hockey teams allow 13 total goals in a season. Imagine the stigma of hearing the thump in the back of the cage that many times in a single afternoon.

When Edward Little dropped to 2-4-2 with an agonizing 13-1 loss to seven-time defending Class A champion Skowhegan, it would have been easy for the defeat to have a lingering effect that soured the Red Eddies’ season.

Instead, EL took the common sense approach and realized that the staggering score was less a reflection of itself than an unsinkable opponent.

“We came back and played very well against Mt. Blue,” said EL coach Greg Perkins, referencing a 1-0 victory that shifted his team back into gear.

The Red Eddies also rolled through Morse, Lewiston and Brunswick, erupting for four goals in each game.

KVAC teams that are able to pick on people their own size typically turn out OK. Messalonskee, Skowhegan, Gardiner and Cony continue to hold sway over the Class A division. The Big Four finished the regular season with a combined record of 49-7.

EL has won six in a row since its midseason slide, ascending to the No. 5 seed in the regional playoffs. The Eddies will travel to Cony in the quarterfinals.

“We lost to the top four teams,” Perkins said. “If we can be consistent, we’re going to be alright.”

Emily Ranucci leads the balanced Eddies with 10 goals, including six in her last three games. Diana Kruszewski, Josie Lahey and Miranda Martin have scored five each.

Staying out of the No. 7 or No. 8 slot helped EL avoid an opening date with Messalonskee and Skowhegan. Those two powers collided in the KVAC championship Friday, with the Eagles pulling off their second straight win over the Indians, 1-0.

There’s no ideal road trip for the quarterfinal round, but EL did represent itself well in a 2-1 loss to Messalonskee.

“Anything can happen,” Perkins said. “You’ve just got to play tough all the time.”

Even it up

Ties aren’t hard to come by in soccer. But more than half your games? That’s almost unheard of.

The Mountain Valley girls are demonstrating the value of the deadlock this season. In the most recent Western Class B Heal Points, the Falcons were ranked eighth appeared safely in the playoff field of 10 despite having the lowest number of wins — one — in the region.

That’s because Mountain Valley played through regulation and sudden-death overtime to a stalemate in an astonishing seven of its first 13 games, splitting the almighty Heal windfall on each occasion.|

Mountain Valley entered last week ahead of Wells (six wins) and Lincoln and Poland (five each).

To put the number in perspective, one or two ties are the norm. No other boys’ or girls’ soccer team or field hockey squad in the state has tied more than four games thus far this season.

Fighting the bug

Mt. Blue hasn’t missed the state meet in boys’ cross country in what seems like forever.

To coach Kelley Cullenberg, it has been forever. The boys have never missed the meet in her tenure.

This year, that could change, and it has nothing to do with anything anyone can control.

“Early in the season, we lost one of our runners to a freak injury, he was kicking a soccer ball around,” Cullenberg said. “This week (another runner) was walking down the hall at his house and somehow he did a number on his pinkie toe. It’s fractured in several places and he’s out six weeks.”

Cullenberg isn’t counting her team out of it just yet, though.

“We’re going to have to work real hard, but we can still do it,” Cullenberg said.