FREEPORT — Abbi King and Becca Cameron scored second-half goals to propel Freeport to a 2-0 win over Waynflete in a Western Maine Conference girls’ soccer game Monday.
It was the fifth consecutive win for the Falcons, who are vying for a spot in the Class B South playoffs.
“Our history with Waynflete is that they’ve all been close games,” Freeport Coach Elayna Girardin said. “They’ve gone into overtime or they’ve been one-goal games.”
Last season, the two teams played to a scoreless tie.
“The year before that they scored with 30 seconds left and knocked us out of the playoffs,” Girardin said.
It took the Falcons (6-2) half the game to figure out how to deal with the Flyers (3-3-1).
“We came out with a very specific game plan in terms in how we would organize the back and the midfield,” Waynflete Coach Jon Shardlow said. “We executed that exceptionally well. Unfortunately, they were able to break that down in the second half on the field.”
It took some time for Freeport to figure how to play against the short passing game employed by Waynflete, which is contending for a berth in the Class C South playoffs.
“Waynflete has very strong center mids, so our center mids had to defend,” Girardin said. “It took (our midfielders) a while to learn that they couldn’t get away with playing the higher-up style of play that we’ve been able to play our last two games.”
King opened the scoring in the 51st minute when Cationa Gould’s crossing pass from the left side came directly to her after the ball deflected off a defender. She put a shot inside the right post.
“I was sitting around the top of the box around the 18, and I just tried to hit (the ball) toward the goal,” King said.
The Falcons didn’t sit on their lead. Instead, they carried play for the rest of the game.
“In the first half, we had a little bit of a slow start, and the second half we just picked it up,” King said.
With less than 10 minutes left, Cameron curled in a direct kick from 30 yards out to the left of the goal. Waynflete goalie Ya Stockford was able to get one hand on the ball at the top of a tremendous leap but was unable to keep it out of the goal.
Freeport held an 18-6 edge in shots and a 4-1 edge in corner kicks.
Freeport freshman goalie Carly Intraversato made three saves to post her fifth shutout of the season.
Midway through the scoreless first half, Intraversato outraced Ava Farrar to a through ball that had reached the top of the box. That turned out to be Waynflete’s best scoring opportunity.
Stockford made 10 saves to keep the Flyers close.
“(Stockford) was really, really good with her hands,” King said. “She would come out and switch fields.”
“Ya has done an exceptional job this year,” Shardlow said. “She’s a young lady who has been a field player throughout her career and is making the transition to playing full time in goal this year.”
Send questions/comments to the editors.
