RUMFRD — Shannon Laubauskas scored 3:39 into the contest, while goalie Katlin Armstrong was perfect in net as Mountain Valley held on for a 1-0 victory against Carrabec in a girls’ soccer game on Homecoming weekend.

The action-packed contest began with a misty rain, but it ended in the hot sunshine.

Mountain Valley had entered the game with momentum after having beaten Spruce Mountain on Thursday. The Falcons strategy in Saturday’s game involved shuffling players in and out to try and find the right combinations.

“It was quite a game, but the score really surprised me,” Mountain Valley coach Jason Perreault said. “Especially after Carrabec had lost 10-0 to Dirigo and we had tied Dirigo. But, Carrabec is a good team and gave us all we could handle. It’s always nice to win a Homecoming game.”

Mountain Valley went on the offensive and flooded the zone. Midfielder Hannah LaPointe initially booted a ball directly in front of the net and a Cobra defender kicked the ball out of bounds. The resulting corner was sent in by Chrissy Briggs and allowed Laubauskas to set up in front. She kicked a low shot past Carrabec goalie Sarah Lee into the left corner of the net.

“A corner had been called,”Laubauskas said. “Chrissy Briggs crossed a nice ball and I was right there. Every thing worked out.”

Hustling for loose balls, Carrabec tried to advancing it when Ashley Knight broke away and was rushing the net, but Falcons stopper Ari Glover slid in for a tackle to knock the ball away. Abby Day and sweeper Autumn Koch cleared several balls, also.

“We wanted to play strong for 80 minutes,” Carrabec coach Jon Bolduc said. “That meant going hard and beating them to every loose ball on offense and defense. We did start off with an entirely new lineup and started several younger players who have shown that they will get after it”

Mountain Valley pressured the offensive zone and had chances. Several shots by Laubauskas, LaPointe and Brena Brown sailed toward the crease. Katherine Collette drilled a ball that struck the crossbar.

“Coach wants us to go hard for the first five minutes of each half,” Laubauskas said. “He wants the forwards to get in there and score.”

Carrabec’s best chance came with 10 minutes left to play. Makayla Leeman rushed in on the rightside, slipped past a defender and fired a low shot toward the far corner. Armstrong (six saves) had to slide over and cradled the shot.

 “We certainly had opportunities though out the game,” Perreault said. “Our conversion rate has been very low and that is something we’ll need to work on in practice this week.”