WINSLOW — The dogfight developing in the girls division of Class B North this season gained further evidence Saturday morning when the Winslow girls soccer team hosted Erskine Academy.
In a well-played physical game, the teams battled through two 40-minute halves and a pair of five-minute overtime periods to a 2-2 tie.
Erskine is 4-1-3, Winslow is 4-1-1.
There was little to choose between these clubs on the field as well as the scoreboard. Both teams had eight shots on goal and scored a goal in each half.
“I knew it was going to be very physical, very intense,” said Erskine senior Kayla Hubbard who had a goal and an assist. “We were hyped since we got on the bus this morning. We were ready for this.”
Senior Annemarie Allen scored Erskine’s other goal while sophomore Katie Doughty and freshman Carly Warn scored for the Black Raiders. Winslow controlled most of the action in the first half, out-shooting the Eagles 5-2, but it was Erskine which scored first when Allen took a through pass from Hubbard and beat keeper Broghan Gagnon to the top right corner.
Doughty tied the game when she bent a long high shot over goalie Taylor Shute after taking a nice drop pass from her older sister Sara. The Eagles came out strong in the second half and out-shot the Raiders 5-2.
“Mostly is was emotional,” Erskine coach Ryan Nored said. “Our whole talk at halftime wasn’t strategy. Our strategy was the right one. It was emotional. In the first half we started playing their kind of game.”
Just over three minutes into the second half, Hubbard put the Eagles up a goal with a tough angle shot from 30 feet along the end line that squeezed between Gagnon and the near post.
“It was a beautiful ball from (Lauren Wood),” Hubbard said. “It couldn’t have been any more perfect. She set the whole thing up.”
The shot was perfect as well, since Gagnon (six saves) is tough to beat.
“She’s hands down the best goalie in this league,” Nored said. “I told the girls coming in that we were going to have to shoot (well) to beat her.”
The Black Raiders picked up their play late in the second half and were rewarded when Warn took a through pass from fellow freshman Grace Bilodeau and found herself wide open in from of the Erskine goal.
“She’s put in her time, played around the state and around the country,” Winslow coach Steve Bodge said of Warn. “She’s scored in all but one or two games so far.”
Each team had a shot in the two overtime periods, the best coming late in second overtime as Sara Doughty appeared to break in on Shute alone only to have the ball cleared by Morgan Presby at the last second.
“Last year when they got ahead 1-0 or 2-1 we wouldn’t have the ability to come back but this year we’re a little better offensively,” Bodge said.
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