SCARBOROUGH — With a 1-0 win over Cheverus on Tuesday night, the Scarborough High School girls’ soccer team feels ready to begin the Class A South playoffs. This was the Red Storm’s third consecutive game against a team in the top six in the regional Heal point standings (they lost to Falmouth, 3-1, and tied Gorham, 2-2), and was as good a tuneup for the tournament as they could want.
“We’ve played the best three teams in our league, except Windham. I think having those three teams as our last three games helped us. It gave us a sense of what playoffs are like,” said Scarborugh sophomore Lana Djuranovic, who scored the lone goal Tuesday night, on a header off a Bridget Davis corner kick with 9:13 left in the first half.
With the win, Scarborough end the regular season at 12-1-1, and will likely be the No. 4 seed in the Class A South tournament. At 9-5, Cheverus expects to be the six seed.
Djuranovic’s goal was her 17th of the season, and combined with her 13 assists, gave Djuranovic 30 points on the season, breaking a Scarborough record held for 20 years by Maureen McHugh, Scarborough Coach Mike Farley said.
“We always draw it up for Lana to be in that dangerous spot on the field. She scored three or four goals in that spot. She’s scored some nice goals off corners this year,” Farley said.
“I just had a feeling I had to go for it. As soon as I saw the ball I knew it was going in. As soon as we attack balls like that, we get really good chances, and I think if we keep doing that we’ll keep scoring those goals,” Djuranovic said.
Scarborough was able to maintain offensive pressure throughout the game. Cheverus goalie Emily Bontatibus made 16 saves to keep the Stags close.
“This is her first year as the starter. She has kept us in our big games all season long,” Cheverus Coach Craig Roberts said. “She’s a basketball player, so she has really good hands. She catches everything in the fingers and in front of her. She doesn’t let it get into her body and bounce off. She can cover everything high.”
While the Stags were able to create a few scoring chances, they never held sustained control on Scarborough’s end. The Stags had young players in new positions across the field, Roberts said.
“I thought in the midfield we had some young players and they held their own pretty well. I thought they played physical and moved the ball well. A lot of our penetrating passes went right to the feet of the backs instead of into those gaps. That’s something we have to work on,” Roberts said.
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