Lisbon Falls — The Lisbon High School boys’ soccer team remained undefeated with a 3-0 win against Dirigo on Monday in a Mountain Valley Conference matchup. Austin Bedford earned a hat trick for the Greyhounds despite sitting out much of the first half with a shin injury.

“The last few games we haven’t really put it all together,” Bedford said. “But this game we stayed positive and kept our composure.”

Lisbon outshot Dirigo 31-6,  but the Cougar defense played better than the score suggests. Justin Grignon anchored the Dirigo defense with 28 saves in net, but the Cougars just couldn’t get things going offensively to stay in it.

“We’re missing one of our starters on defense and two of our captains and I couldn’t be prouder of how they played,” Dirigo head coach Dave Buck said. “They held a really talented team to three. From what I’ve seen, these guys score a lot of goals. They score them in bunches so we’ll take three.”

Bedford got things started with his first goal coming off an assist from Troy Galarneau with 20:32 remaining in the first half to give Lisbon the 1-0 lead. Bedford had a header go just over the goal only a few minutes later. Galarneau almost assisted on another goal when he had a nice cross but no one was able to get there in time and the Cougars cleared the ball. The Greyhounds had plenty of chances, with nine first-half corner kicks.

“I thought we played well,” head coach Dan Sylvester said. “The guys possessed the ball. We started to get the looks we wanted but just have to finish those opportunities, but I thought it was one of the better team games that we played.”

Dirigo struggled offensively, with two first-half shots and just one corner attempt that came up empty.

“We’re missing two of our offensive players, both our captains,” Buck said. “They’ve been playing together a long time and they know each others game so it’s really a matter of getting enough time together with some of these freshmen that they haven’t played with.”

The rest of the half was more close shot attempts by Lisbon and some savvy defense and goaltending by Dirigo. Grignon had 14 of his 28 saves in the first half.

“He’s quick, he makes really good decisions,” Buck said of his goalkeeper. “You don’t catch him off guard very often. I mean Bedford scored three and he’s going to do that against a lot of teams so I feel solid with Grignon back there, he’s tough and has great hands.”

Bedford scored his second goal of the match with 33:18 left to play off a nice pass by Galarneau for his second assist. Bradley Boulet, who played well offensively for the ‘Hounds despite not getting onto the stat sheet, had many of his shots just go wide or saved.

“Bradley’s our little spark plug,” Sylvester said. “He just grinds it out, that’s the way he plays all the time and he’s had very good looks lately.”

Dirigo had a few more chances in the second half, with four shots but nothing got by Lisbon goalkeeper Jonah Sautter, who had four saves on the day and played well when he was called upon.

Bedford scored his final goal when the initial shot hit the post and Noah Austin crossed the rebound to Bedford for the header with 11:50 to play in the game.

“They’re starting to look for each other more as opposed to playing individually,” Sylvester said. “They’re looking for more of the combos for the team from the backfield to the forwards.”

Wesley Libby also played well for Dirigo defensively while Austin Fournier helped create offense for Lisbon.

“I think we’re maturing,” Buck said. “We’ve got some guys learning on the job, they’re figuring out what they need to do to play at the varsity level.”

The ‘Hounds held a 12-1 advantage in corner kicks.

Copy the Story Link