HERMON — Raegan Cowan’s 68th goal of the season turned out to be perhaps the most important of her career.

In the middle of a scrum with 7:54 left in overtime, Cowan found just enough room to nail a shot into the far right corner of the net, giving Madison a 2-1 win over Dexter in the 8-person girls soccer state championship game Saturday at Pottle Field.

“It feels amazing,” Cowan said. “The hard work has paid off.

“(On the goal), there was a lot of scrambling going on, I just knew that, if you’re shooting, there’s a good chance it might go in. I just found the ball, kicked it and it happened to go in.”

Madison (18-0-0) has now won back-to-back 8-person titles and has gone 34-2-0 in its last two seasons. With 68 goals, Cowan has scored more in a single season than any Maine high school player — male or female — and scored 126 goals in her final two seasons. Mackenzie Robbins added a second-half goal for the Bulldogs.

“I think (this title) feels better than last time, because it’s senior year and there’s no other way you want to end (your career) than that.”

Dexter, which had a second-half goal from junior Desiree Adams, finished 17-1-0.

Neither team gained ground in the first half, as it was a back-and-forth possession battle, with Dexter taking the only shot on goal.

Dexter kept the Madison offense, which entered the game outscoring opponents by a 114-6 margin, at bay throughout much of the match, getting physical with Madison players on loose balls. The Tigers also marked Cowan with two, or sometimes even three players, to keep her away from the ball. Cowan didn’t hit her first shot on net until 9:30 left in the second half, a direct shot that was easily saved by Dexter goalkeeper Adalea Gudroe.

“(Dexter) had a great defensive effort, their game plan worked very well,” Cowan said. “You just have to get open. For me, personally, I just had to outwork them and it worked out in the end.”

“I was just telling them not to react (to the physicality) and play their game,” Madison head coach Lauren Peters said.

Madison broke the scoreless tie with 13:47 left in the second half, when Robbins hit a direct kick from 35 yards out that sailed over Gudroe’s head and into the net for the 1-0 lead.

“I was really nervous (on the kick), because it’s windy, and (Friday) at practice, a lot of my balls were going over the net because the wind took them,” Robbins said. “I kind of just hoped and prayed, and just kicked it.”

Dexter responded four minutes later as Adams found space in front of the net, knocking a shot past Bulldogs goalkeeper Allison Tuscan for the 1-1 tie, where it remained for the rest of regulation.

“I was just telling (the team after regulation) that we had to keep being aggressive, I felt Dexter was beating us to the ball in the first half,” Peters said. “We really needed to step it up in the second half, control the pace of the game and keep it down on (Dexter’s) end of the field. I feel that’s exactly what we did, which was good.”

Madison put more offensive pressure on Dexter in overtime before Cowan found her shot to end the game. The Bulldogs outshot the Tigers by a 6-4 margin in the match.

“This is just an amazing accomplishment for this team, they did amazing,” Peters said.