BATH — Survive and advance.
It didn’t come easy, but the Richmond girls soccer team overcame a sound defensive strategy from Hyde to take a 1-0 victory in a Class D South quarterfinal Wednesday at McMann Field.
The top-seeded Bobcats (11-3-1) will host No. 5 Buckfield on Friday. The Wolfpack end their season 4-10-1.
The match — originally scheduled to be played in Richmond — was moved to Bath due to poor field conditions.
For 62 minutes, the Bobcats found themselves unable to finish scoring chances. Hyde played a purely defensive match — dropping most of its players back by the box — deflecting several shots from a Richmond offense that’s averaged over five goals per game entering the contest.
“We scouted them, and they had two really good center mids,” Richmond coach Troy Kendrick said. “They dropped. You could tell, when we pressured and pressured them, they would drop. We have seen that bunker defense. We’d hit some shots, but (the shots) were deflecting and deflecting. I was just telling the kids to be patient, changing fields and the point of attack.”
Midway through the second half, Richmond found its opportunity, and sophomore striker Bryannah Shea took advantage. With a loose ball in front of the net, Shea knocked it past Hyde goalkeeper Tanae Arnold into the corner of the net for the score.
“(The Hyde defenders) weren’t talking a lot,” Shea said. “I saw the ball right in front of the goal and just thought (hit the) corner. That’s all I thought was corner.”
The Bobcats dominated possession for most of the match, particularly in the second half, as Hyde never had a shot on net. Richmond had an 18-4 shot advantage for the evening.
Arnold finished with 10 saves for the Wolfpack. Elizabeth Johnson needed just one save for the shutout for Richmond.
Richmond moves on to face a Buckfield team that has had success against the Bobcats this season. Richmond beat Buckfield 3-0 at home Sept. 4, but the Bucks grabbed a 1-0 victory Oct. 16 in Buckfield.
“(Buckfield) is high energy, they’re awfully hard workers,” Kendrick said. “It’ll be nice to get them back on our field, be able to spread them out a little but. They’re tough. They’re a team that likes to stack it up a bit (defensively), so they’re hard to penetrate.”
Dave Dyer — 621-5640
ddyer@centralmaine.com
Twitter: @Dave_Dyer
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