YARMOUTH — This week in practice, Yarmouth Clippers head coach Andrea Musante stressed offense and scoring. The No. 2-seeded Clippers followed through Wednesday, pouring on the goals in a 5-3 win over No. 7 Leavitt Area High School in their Class B South quarterfinal.

“Today, our game plan was offense,” Musante said. “We have been focusing on that a ton this week. We have had some letdowns in the regular season, so we were entirely focused on scoring. To see that number out there for us tonight was great.”

The majority of the offense on Wednesday ran through senior captain Emilie Martin, who scored the opening goal of the game just nine minutes in.

Martin then turned around and fired a shot past Leavitt goalkeeper Hailey DeMascio for her second of four goals on the night just three minutes later.

“They were absolutely huge, they set the tone and we needed them for insurance,” Musante said. “To see a playoff score like that, it’s exciting because it went back-and-forth for us.”

Yarmouth had eight shots in the first half and six penalty corners, taking advantage of its time on offense. The Hornets also had five corners, but Yarmouth’s defense were able to hold them to three first-half shots.

With about 12 minutes left, a deflected ball fell to the stick of Cate Ralph, who ripped a long shot to increase the Clippers’ lead to three.

While Ralph’s goal was set up in the offensive end, a lot of Yarmouth’s offense was generated off of quick wingers conducting counter attacks.

“A lot of our goals came on breakaways so they did not have a bunch of people clumped in the center of the circle,” Martin said. “So I just saw the gap in the middle and I just shot.”

While Yarmouth had a stronghold on most of the first half, Leavitt’s Samantha Martineau whipped a long shot off a redirected pass that got by goalkeeper Cayte Tillotson for a goal just before halftime. Musante told her team at halftime to not let up the intensity.

“We talked about how it was playoffs and we had given them a taste and that was all we wanted them to have,” Musante said.

Just two and a half minutes into the second half, Martin got on the board again with a quick shot past DeMascio, who finished with six saves.

“In the playoffs you never know who’s going to come out stronger because no one wants their season to end,” Musante said. “When we came out and scored again after the half it was something that we mentioned we needed because I said this wasn’t going to be the end score. They listened and acted on that and it made me very proud of them.”

Leavitt’s offense started to click in the second half. Kayla Leclerc scored on an assist from Haylee Janosco to cut the Hornets’ deficit to two. The Hornets later had a couple of shots that were close to being goals but were ultimately disallowed.

With a hat trick in hand, Martin scored her fourth goal with just under 18 minutes remaining on a long shot from the top of the circle. Kaitlyn Leclerc scored Leavitt’s third goal with six minutes left.

Yarmouth held on from there.

“After we put one in we didn’t let up either and kept hammering it,” Martin said. “That’s the intensity we need to keep throughout playoffs because I want to go far.”

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