DIXFIELD — Mt. Abram knew what it was like to score early but see Dirigo get the last word.

It happened twice during the Mountain Valley Conference boys’ soccer season, leading to a loss and a tie for the Roadrunners.

Consider the cycle broken.

Disheartened less than four minutes earlier by Hunter Ross’ game-tying goal, the Roadrunners rang up a reply from Amos Withee with 1:02 remaining in regulation Wednesday. It gave No. 5 Mt. Abram a 2-1 Western Class C quarterfinal triumph over No. 4 Dirigo at Harlow Park.

“I want to say that’s only Amos’ third goal this season,” Mt. Abram coach Mark Lopez said. “He has the ability to finish. He really does. He’s my finisher now.”

Mt. Abram (9-4-2) advanced to the semifinals for the first time in Lopez’s four-year tenure. The Roadrunners will travel to No. 1 Hall-Dale in hopes of reversing a 6-1 loss in the opening game of the  season.

The Roadrunners avoided overtime and another potentially frustrating finish when the Cougars couldn’t clear their defensive zone.

Chris Daly gained possession on the positive side of midfield and hit Withee in stride with a through ball.

“I’ve always been taught that the most dangerous time for any team is right after a goal is scored or the last two minutes of a game or a half, and that’s exactly what happened,” Lopez said. “They got that goal, both teams were exhausted, and then a little breakdown which is what happened to us on our end.”

Withee blasted the ball past Dirigo goalkeeper Mike Chow inside the right post, touching off a wild celebration and striking an unlikely blow for individuality.

Most Mt. Abram players arrived for their playoff game with Mohawk haircuts, some even choosing to highlight it with blue paint. Withee wore his usual, full, brown covering up top.

“If I got one, I wouldn’t have put (the goal) in,” Withee joked.

The end was no laughing matter for Dirigo (9-5-1), which thought it had put its first-half struggles against Mt. Abram’s strong, aggressive defenders to rest.

“We had trouble clearing the ball. It would go off the side of our foot. It would go in behind us and we’d miss it,” Dirigo coach Jack Rioux said. “The ball squirted through and they had a kid on the back post. It was a good finish by their kid.”

One good finish deserved another, apparently.

Ross and Chad Snowman had hooked up for a strikingly similar goal only minutes earlier. Snowman found a seam through two defenders and set up his speedy teammate one-on-one against Roadrunners goalie Tristen Dyar.

Together with senior classmate T.J. Frost, Dirigo’s explosive duo owned experience from championship games in two other sports and had inflicted a season’s worth of frustration upon Mt. Abram.

“Ross and Snowman are so dangerous,” Lopez said. “I really feel that man for man we’re a better team, but I feel they have two or three of the better players on the field and that’s a huge equalizer.”

But for long stretches of the first half and in the fateful, game-ending sequence, the Cougars couldn’t push the ball past the Roadrunners’ big bodies in the middle and on the back line, chiefly Solomon Fast and Arthur Ryan.

“You could say they’re a physical team. We knew if we wanted to compete today we had to match that intensity,” Rioux said. “We had glimpses of that, but for the most part they were the more physical team. They wanted it more. We had it at times, but they took it to us for a good part of the game.”

Mt. Abram snagged a 1-0 lead 3:18 prior to the half.

Ethan Boyd’s hefty throw-in from 40 yards out sailed over the entire Dirigo defense to Jay Chenard, who hooked his uncontested shot inside the near post.

“Jay’s been a warrior for us all season,” Lopez said.

Dyar, a sophomore, made 11 saves for Mt. Abram. Chow stopped five for Dirigo, which owned a slim 15-13 advantage in shots.

“I thought momentum had shifted,” Rioux said. “That just broke our hearts with a minute left. That happens. That’s sports. That’s soccer.”

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