SOUTH CHINA — The sign on the side of Mount View’s team bus read “We Made It,” referring to the Thorndike school’s first trip to the girls soccer playoffs after a long hiatus.
From the opening whistle of Friday’s Class B North preliminary round match against No. 7 Erskine Academy, the 10th-seeded Mustangs showed that they weren’t just happy to make it. They plan to stick around for awhile.
Mount View played the aggressor from the start and upset Erskine with a 2-0 win. The Mustangs (6-6-3) will face No. 2 Hermon in the quarterfinals at 5 p.m. on Tuesday. The Eagles end their season 10-4-1.
“I think we just wanted to come in here and kick butt, and that’s exactly what we did,” sophomore forward Grace Redwine said. “We were not ready for this season to be over.”
Redwine and Arianna Kaczmarek scored for Mount View, while Jenni Nadeau was outstanding in net with eight saves.
“It’s a young group, so we don’t know what we’re going to expect from game to game,” Mount View coach Dave Page said. “We’ve got a lot of sophomores and even our older kids were new to playing at this level.”
Redwine scored what turned out to be the game-winner with 8:36 left in the first half. Junior Angela Strain served the ball left-footed from the right wing to the front of the net. The ball appeared to deflect off an Erskine defender as players converged and Redwine was there to put the follow into the net.
“It was all my wing. It was that feed,” Redwine said.
“We knew coming in it was their first playoff game in 10 years and the kind of coach Dave is and the kind of players he has, he was going to get them emotional. And they came out with emotion we didn’t have,” Erskine coach Ryan Nored said. “When they got that goal, it just gave them the extra adrenaline they needed. If we had gotten that (first) goal, I think things would have been different.”
The Mustangs continued to force the tempo to start the second half, reeling off three shots in the first four minutes.
Erskine managed just one shot on goal in the first 19 minutes of the second half, but the Mustangs needed all of Nadeau’s athleticism to stay in front. Junior Taylor McLaggan booted a free kick from about 25 yards out that Nadeau went high into the air to snag and preserve the lead with 33 minutes left.
“I knew that girl could kick long balls because we’d been talking about it all week. I’ve been practicing catching those, so I was ready for it,” Nadeau said.
After showing off her leaping ability, Nadeau showed a little speed to beat Kaylee Porter to a loose ball at the top of the box that could have been trouble but for the goalie’s quick thinking and feet.
The Eagles subbed five at a time throughout the game in hopes of wearing out the Mustangs, but Mount View kept them from setting up another good scoring chance until the final 10 minutes.
“We’ve been very strong defensively lately,” senior midfielder Ryleigh Lord said. “Our sweeper, Lilly Redwine, she holds the defense together. Last year, she found her voice being able to tell the defense what to do, and this year, she’s definitely learned how to cut off passes and crosses.”
McLaggan just missed wide of the net redirecting Erskine’s first corner kick of the second half with about nine minutes left. With a little under six minutes to go, the Mustangs were whistled for a hand ball in the box, setting up a direct kick from Mallory Chamberlain that forced Nadeau to again leap high into the air and tip over the crossbar. On the ensuing corner kick, the senior made another stop on Porter’s second-touch header.
The Mustangs had to close the game without Nadeau in net. With 2:13 left, officials gave her a yellow card for delay of game when, before a goal kick, she put the ball down, picked it up again and moved it. That meant Nadeau would have to go to the sideline for the rest of regulation.
Lord, who played goal for Maine Central Institute as an underclassman, put on Nadeau’s yellow jersey and held down the net for the rest of the game, making a diving stop as time ran out.
“Shala (Davis) is the backup goalie for us but she wasn’t anywhere near and I was, like, ‘I need to take this,'” Lord said of her decision to take over netminding duties. “It was just an adrenaline thing, a thing that was in the moment. I didn’t know if that was allowed or not.”
Kaczmarek took a lot of the pressure off Lord and the Mustangs by scoring the insurance goal on the rebound of a Davis shot with 1:09 left.
Randy Whitehouse — 621-5638
rwhitehouse@mainetoday.com
Twitter: @RAWmaterial33
Send questions/comments to the editors.
