FARMINGTON — Jordan Pellerin knew it was time to try something new.

The Waterville senior forward had put numerous shots on net only to watch Mt. Blue’s Allison Brown foil every opportunity. So when Pellerin gained possession of the ball late in the first half Tuesday, she changed it up.

“You think that you’ve got to try something different,” said Pellerin.

Instead of creating another shot for herself, Pellerin dished the ball off. She fed Abbie Webster on the right side and the junior Purple Panther buried a nice bid of her own. That goal held up as Waterville fended off a game Cougar squad for the second time this season, 1-0. Mt. Blue lost to Waterville 4-3 earlier in the season.

“The one time we broke down, there were probably seven breakdowns on that goal they scored,” said Mt. Blue coach Fred Conlogue. ” Other than that, I thought our game plan worked pretty well to do what we needed to do. I like to win or tie every game, but you learn a lot about the character of your team when you play hard the whole game against a really good team.”

Waterville (9-2-1) is currently ranked third in Eastern A while the Cougars (6-4-2) are in sixth, with games at Messalonskee and Lawrence left in the regular season. Though the Cougars came up short again against Waterville, Mt. Blue, with just five seniors, proved it can compete with some of the best clubs in the prospective tourney field.

“I’m excited,” said Conlogue. “They’re one of the top four teams in the East. If we are able to make the playoffs, we’re going to face a team like that.  To know we lost by one goal twice and we tied Bangor once and lost to them up there and split with Hampden, it does a lot for our confidence being such a young group.”

Mt. Blue was able to go toe-to-toe with the Panthers early, but Waterville was able to produce the best of the chances. Pellerin had most of them. Whether she chipped it high and to the left, put it just inside the left post or high under the crossbar, Brown was able to leap, dive and sprawl for each save.

“Their goalie had a good game,” said Pellerin, who also had junior Marina West doing a nice job of shadowing her most of the game. “It definitely was frustrating. They were all on net. It’s rare to have a lot of shots on net like that. She was just full out diving for them.”

When Waterville had the Cougar defense scrambling, Pellerin got the ball. Instead of making a move for a shot, she dished off to her teammate. Webster took the ball and battled a defender for space to shoot. With Brown charging out of the net, Webster managed to make a move to the left, by the defender and catch Brown out of the goal for an open look with 1:35 left in the half.

“We’ve been trying to work a lot of give-and-go’s and through balls in practice,” said Pellerin. “It’s been a big focus. It came off a midfield pass, and I just tipped it through. We’ve been working on that a lot.”

Mt. Blue was outshot 19-6 overall and only had a handful of quality chances. Hannah Allen had the best bid early but redirected a ball over the net. In the second half Rachel Karno put a corner kick in front but two Cougars had cracks at a shot but couldn’t get the ball on net. Late in the game, Allen had a shot from outside the area that Kylee Gardiner stopped. Abby Flanagan had a free kick in the closing minutes but the header that came from it went wide.

“We had a couple good opportunities,” said Conlogue. “We had one at the end of the game and had a really good through ball early in the game that we weren’t able to get a shot off. At the same time, we were creating and had enough opportunities to at least tie or win the game.”

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