AUBURN — Edward Little may not be the biggest, fastest or most experienced team in KVAC and Eastern Class A boys’ soccer.

Patience, sound technique and a knack for taking advantage of every opportunity dropped in your path will get you everywhere, though.

Goals by Luke Sterling and Jared Plourde and another shutout by goalkeeper Lew Jensen and the EL defense aptly demonstrated all those strengths Tuesday in a 2-0 triumph over Mt. Blue.

Sterling’s header from Mike Hammond put the Red Eddies (6-1-1) in front with 24 minutes remaining in the first half. Plourde pounced on a Cougars defensive lapse to provide the second-half insurance.

Jensen made six saves for EL, which has allowed only four goals all season and won its fourth consecutive game.

“We’re pretty solid in the back. We knew today was going to be a bit of a dogfight,” Edward Little coach Matt Andreasen said. “Defensively we’ve been very sound. We work hard in the midfield, and we’ve been opportunistic.”

With lockdown mark-ups by Kaleb Main, Evan Raymond and others forcing Mt. Blue’s playmakers to the perimeter, Jensen had a relatively quiet afternoon.

In fact, his most trying sequence was an equipment malfunction. Jensen apparently lost his mouthpiece while leaping to make a save, and one of the officials later caught him without it. It led to a yellow card for his coach and a brief, required trip to the sidelines.

“They make it easy days like today. I think I might have hit the ground once,” Jensen said of his backs. “They’re solid. They’re not all fast, but they’re solid and they keep the guy in front of them.”

EL supplied all the support that defense needed on an extended possession after Mt. Blue initially warded off a corner kick.

Raymond deposited a through-ball from about 25 yards past a pair of Mt. Blue defenders to Hammond, who found Sterling streaking to the cage ahead of the pack. His header eluded Mt. Blue keeper Colton Lawrence.

“It was a jump ball, and Lukie’s been doing his plyometrics,” Andreasen said with a smile. “He just got a little higher than the defender and redirected it home.”

“The first one, I felt like we came out flat,” Mt. Blue coach Joel Smith said. “I thought we could have done a better job challenging on that header.”

The Cougars (3-5) exhibited more fire late in the first half and early in the second, with Drew Parsons directing several promising possessions and Gage Kennedy and Liam Welch stifling the Eddies’ retorts at the other end.

Mt. Blue’s comeback hopes dissolved when the Cougars shanked a free kick and Plourde cashed in with an uncontested goal, his team-leading seventh of the season.

“He’s like a poacher up front. He’s very consistent. He’ll always but the ball in the frame, which is a very good quality for a striker to have,” Andreasen said of Plourde. “I feel like that goal seemed to deflate them. They came out with a lot of energy in the second half. The bench was very loud and noisy. It was certainly a big goal for us to score and put that game away.”

Lawrence made seven saves for Mt. Blue, which has dropped five out of six. The Cougars were shut out for only the third time.

“A day like today wasn’t our greatest, but we were still able to get the win,” Jensen said. “It’s easy to get up for Lewiston (because they’re a rival). It’s hard to get up for Mt. Blue, you know? So to come out and get a 2-0 win was a good win.”

koakes@sunjournal.com

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