FALMOUTH — For the fifth time in the last six seasons, the Yarmouth boys’ soccer team is the Class B state champion.
The Clippers capped their unbeaten season Saturday with a 3-1 win over Caribou at Falmouth High School. It’s Yarmouth’s 13th state championship overall, the most by any boys’ program.
Senior Alejandro Coury scored a pair of goals, one late in each half, for Yarmouth (15-0-3).
“It’s huge for us,” Coury said. “The seniors were pretty disappointed last year with how it ended, and we knew what the end goal was. We’re delighted.”
Yarmouth lost to Cape Elizabeth, 2-1, in the regional semifinals last season.
Coury’s first goal came three minutes before the end of the first half after Yarmouth had been outplayed by Caribou (15-1-2) for long stretches. It sent the Clippers into the break with the 1-0 lead and settled some jangled nerves for the South regional champion.
That momentum carried over into the second half, when a more pronounced possession game left Caribou on the chase until Yarmouth’s Liam Ireland was awarded a penalty kick. Ireland calmly converted it in the 59th minute for a 2-0 lead.
“We were on the back foot for a bit (in the second half), and the PK was a dagger,” Caribou Coach Scott Hunter said.
“Ball pressure was really important today,” Ireland said. “If we turned it over, we had to win the ball back right away. It was passing, moving off the ball and passing around them and being patient for the opportunities to come, which they did.”
The gut punch leveled the Vikings for the next several minutes, with Coury scoring his second goal in the 71st minute. A one-man counter-attack, Coury held off a pair of Caribou backs to get to the heart of the 18-yard box and finish off any hopes of a Vikings comeback.
“He’s a special kid,” Yarmouth Coach Mike Hagerty said of Coury. “We tried to put more numbers forward to open up room for him in the midfield, because he does dribble the ball so well and draws so much attention. He finds that ball. I don’t know how he finds it so much.”
Caribou needed more out of a very good first half, one in which the North champion survived a four-minute Yarmouth onslaught at the outset before settling in and using its size to create scoring chances.
In the 27th minute, a lofted cross from the left side evaded Yarmouth keeper Isaac Owen (three saves) and was left for William Nicholas to try and clean up. Nicholas did, but not without heading the ball off his own crossbar before a follow-up bid from Caribou’s Cullim Caverhill skipped wide of the right post.
“I thought we had them maybe a little bit stunned and wondering, but we weren’t able to put those in,” Hunter said. “Against a really great team like Yarmouth, you’ve got to take advantage of your opportunities. You’ve got to capitalize.”
Caribou keeper Cory Herbert kept the Vikings in the game for as long as he could. He finished with eight saves, many of them spectacular.
It wasn’t until the 75th minute, when Ethan Holdsworth scored on a one-on-one with Owen, that Caribou finally got on the scoreboard.
“They really played us well,” Coury said. “They knew what our strengths and weaknesses were, and they were much better than us in the air. They tried to keep it that way, but once we got the ball on the floor and started knocking it around we knew they wouldn’t be able to keep up.”
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