YARMOUTH — Sophomore Eric LaBrie scored twice, once to erase a deficit and then in overtime, and Yarmouth beat Greely 3-2 on Saturday in a Class B South semifinal, eliminating the Rangers from the playoffs for the third consecutive season.
“He’s just such a dangerous player,” said Yarmouth Coach Mike Hagerty. “Today were his 13th and 14th goals of the year, by a sophomore – fabulous stuff. He’s got a knack for it and he’s one of the calmest sophomores I’ve ever seen around the goal. He just doesn’t get panicked.”
“The biggest thing is his speed,” added Greely Coach Mike Andreasen.
“He just ran past two of our best defenders and we need to be able to bump him a little bit. But trying to beat him in a foot race isn’t going to happen.”
Yarmouth (13-2-1), the No. 2 seed, advances to its fourth straight regional final and will take on top-seeded Maranacook, which eliminated York in the other semifinal.
On Saturday, sixth-seeded Greely (9-8) was the first to break through, with Hunter Graham scoring 19 minutes in.
Graham added the second goal midway through the second half to give the Rangers their second lead of the game.
“Hunter Graham would start for every team in the state and he’s going to play in college,” said Hagerty.
“He’s so dangerous one on one, he’s even dangerous when its one on two. That lets them drop guys back on defense too.”
LaBrie tied the game at 1 late in the first half, and junior Luke Groothoff added the second tying goal with just four minutes left in regulation when a ball deflected off a defender and into the top right corner of the net.
Just under seven minutes into overtime, LaBrie headed home a pass from the foot of junior Luke Waeldner.
“I was just trying to get any part of my body on that ball I could,” said LaBrie. “Credit to Luke, he made a great pass.”
“Props go to Luke Waldner, who earned that playing time,” said Hagerty. “He hasn’t played a lot in the second half of the season. The assistant coaches and the captains both said, ‘give him time, he’s earned it.’ And then he got the assist in overtime. Good for the kids and coaches speaking up, and good for Luke, because he got the ball to the back post.”
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