ORONO — A few weeks ahead of Thanksgiving, the Winslow boys soccer team got a head start on sharpening up their carving skills.

Junior captain Jake Warn turned in his third brace in as many games this playoff season, and the Black Raiders continued to prove deadly on the counter-attack en route to a 3-1 win over No. 1 John Bapst to claim the Class B North championship at the University of Maine on Wednesday afternoon. An unbeaten No. 2 seed, Winslow (16-0-1) will face B South champion Yarmouth in the state title game at 12:30 p.m. on Saturday at Hampden Academy.

Sophomore Isaac Lambrecht added a goal and an assist in the win.

“There’s just a certain energy in these playoff games. It’s really exciting,” said Warn, who scored both of his goals late in the first half to erase an early 1-0 Crusader lead. “We’ve been together forever. I grew up playing (youth travel soccer) with all of them, and we’re a really tight group.”

That cohesiveness was key after the match got off to the worst imaginable start for the Black Raiders. John Bapst (15-2-0) came out firing over the first 15 minutes, using speed and size up top to generate quality scoring chances and set up Paul Branch’s successful penalty kick in the third minute.

But even in the face of the early deficit, the Winslow counter-attack lurked and tied the game in the 29th minute when Matt Phillips sprung Warn down the right side. Phillips’ beautiful flick in traffic in the midfield found Warn, who finished expertly from the right side.

Nine minutes later, it was Warn again. Daylon Carpenter set the play in motion by winning a 50-50 ball at midfield to Lambrecht, who then dished off for Warn to finish from nearly the identical spot his first score came from.

“I’m just there to be able to put it away,” Warn said. “It’s definitely a team effort, but it’s nice to be able to put those away for us.”

“After the first 10 or 15 minutes, I think we started to possess more and we definitely started moving the ball and getting those through balls in the midfield,” Carpenter said. “That let us push forward in the attack to get those goals.”

John Bapst coach Peter McDonnell was succinct in his assessment of the Black Raiders attack — and how good it is.

“They’re the only team that’s cut us open,” McDonnell said. “The onslaught from Winslow over that period of time, they’ve got so many players who can finish, and they’re always going to punish you. They’re the only team that’s cut us open, and I feel like we defended well all season.”

After the half, Winslow settled into more of a possession game, controlling both the ball and space to hold the Crusaders to just a single shot over the final 40 minutes — a long, optimistic bid from deep range posing little threat to Raider keeper Jake Lapierre (six saves).

Lambrecht’s goal in the 46th minute, set up by Carpenter, provided more than enough breathing room.

“We played in stretches late in the first half and for most of the second half where I thought we definitely had the better of the play,” Winslow head coach Aaron Wolfe said. “I thought we possessed the ball a lot, and our defense played great. We really didn’t give them much.”

After reaching the regional finals for the first time in nine years, Winslow has still one match remaining. The common cry from the sideline following the final whistle Wednesday was, “We’re not done yet.”

“I knew going into the year that we were maybe lacking in numbers, but I knew we had a good solid core of players,” Wolfe said. “You can’t expect something like this, but I really did think we’d be a team to be reckoned with.”

Travis Barrett — 621-5621

tbarrett@centralmaine.com

Twitter; @TBarrettGWC

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