“Sometimes we come out and we score early, and it just gets the momentum flowing and the juices going,” Lisbon coach Julie Wescott said. “I told the girls in the first half: ‘Let’s take care of business. We don’t want to play panicked field hockey today.'”

The Greyhounds listened well to their coach.

Olivia Harrington and Molly Nicholson scored 25 seconds apart and Harrington added her second of three 2:24 later early in the first half as Lisbon cruised to a 7-2 victory over visiting Old Orchard Beach in the teams’ Western Class C field hockey quarterfinal Wednesday.

“We’ve said all season that the scoring doesn’t matter, especiallly in the playoffs,” Wescott said. “We saw (Tuesday) a six seed upset a three. I asked the girls if they were ready for the season to be over. Obviously they want to continue.”

“We’ve been practicing on our finishing, so we were excited about that,” Harrington said. “When we got on the field, we said as a team we were going to work together and we had success.”

Harrington completed her hat trick with the fourth Lisbon goal with 3:13 to play in the first half.

“It was just the intensity we all brought, and we worked together,” Harrington said.

Late in the first half, the No. 8 Seagulls (3-12-0) even played down a player after an apparent injury.

“I had one player who had to come off, and we actually played short for a little while,” Old Orchard coach Carolyn Mehlman. “It was just the intensity we all brought, and we worked together.

“I have a couple of my starters who are sick, so we had to move some people around. After things kind of got settled down, she got back into the game, and in the second half I moved some forwards around. It seemed to help. The last 15 minutes of the game, it was like, ‘Why didn’t we play like this from the start?'”

Indeed Old Orchard appeared to play more evenly in the second half, finally producing a few shots against an otherwise stalwart Lisbon defense that was led all game by Bailey Madore.

“I hate to think we played a little relaxed in the second half, but that happens,” Wescott said. “Bailey Madore is a wall, she plays offensive center-mid, defensive center-mid, she’s everywhere. She’s a senior leader out on the field for us.”

Lisbon ran the score to 6-0 on goals from Hanna Jordan and Nicholson, but the Seagulls fought back. Daphne Allen and Mackenzie Rague rattled the cage in the final four minutes of the contest, sandwiched around Nicholson’s third for the Greyhounds (14-0-1).

“That’s how we’ve played,” Mehlman said. “We’ll get behind, and we’ll get this burst in the second half with such intensity. We’ve never given up, that’s how we’ve played all season.”

Lisbon will next host Traip in a Western C semifinal, currently scheduled for 1 p.m. Saturday. No. 2 North Yarmouth Academy hosts No. 6 Dirigo in the other semifinal, also scheduled for Saturday.