Ben Adey has already helped Waynflete win this spring’s Class C boys’ tennis state title.
Now he and the Flyers will have an opportunity to win a boys’ lacrosse championship, as well.
Wednesday afternoon at Fore River Fields, Adey and his defensive mates shut down North Yarmouth Academy’s potent offense, and five Flyers scored in an 11-4 Class C semifinal victory.
Sam Whipple led the way with four goals, Roan Hopkins added three, and Harry Millspaugh got two goals and five assists as top-ranked Waynflete (13-1) led from start to finish. The Flyers set up a showdown with No. 2 Oak Hill/Monmouth/Lisbon (13-0) in the state final Saturday at a time to be announced at Fitzpatrick Stadium in Portland.
“Getting (to states) has been my goal the whole year long and we’re right where we want to be,” said Adey.
The teams played a one-goal contest in the regular season, but the Flyers quickly seized control this time, as Millspaugh and Whipple scored in a 38-second span to put Waynflete ahead to stay.
Brayden Warde answered for No. 4 NYA (9-6), but Hopkins scored his first goal late in the first quarter, then Ned Lane, Millspaugh and Hopkins scored in the second quarter for a 6-1 lead.
The Panthers appeared to get a little momentum when Warde and Luke Lathrop scored consecutive goals, but Hopkins finished a feed from Millspaugh with 12.8 seconds on the clock to make it 7-3 at halftime.
Whipple and Nils Burton-Johnanson then opened the second-half scored, and after Caleb Waterman got one back for NYA, Whipple scored his final two goals.
“I’m amazed by how my guys keep showing up to big games and going beyond expectations,” said Waynflete’s first-year coach, Andrew Leach. “The guys had talked about this game since the beginning of the season. Our goal was to make it to the state game and we knew more than likely we’d have to go through NYA to get there.”
Alex Vest stopped 10 shots for Waynflete, while Jack Curtis made 13 saves for the Panthers, who won the last Class C state title in 2019.
“We had a couple things that we had worked on coming into the game that we hadn’t showed other teams yet, and some of them worked and some of them didn’t,” said NYA Coach Peter Gerrity. “(Waynflete) had a bunch too, and they played super-hard.
“I was really happy with how we did this year.”
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