WALES — Waynflete pulled away in the second quarter and beat Oak Hill/Monmouth/Lisbon 8-4 in a Class C semifinal boys lacrosse matchup on Tuesday.
The sixth-seeded Flyers’ (10-5) victory sets up a state title game matchup with top-seeded North Yarmouth Academy (11-3) this Friday at Fitzpatrick Stadium in Portland.
Waynflete is the defending state champion, having defeated Oak Hill/Monmouth/Lisbon 17-5 in last year’s state final.
Seth Cloutier led the Flyers’ offense Tuesday with four goals, including two in the second period.
After Gavin Leet scored for Oak Hill/Monmouth/Lisbon to tie the game early in the second, Waynflete reeled off five straight goals — two from Cloutier, two from Nils Burton-Johanson and one from Haven Savory-Kreis — to outscore the Raiders 5-1 in the period and push the Flyers’ lead to 7-2 at the halftime break.
“We just have a set offense, you know, we run it pretty well. We had a great game plan coming into the game,” Cloutier said.
Second-seeded Oak Hill/Monmouth/Lisbon (9-6) struck first at the 6:23 mark in the first with a Gage Spier goal on an assist from Gavin Leet.
Waynflete responded a minute later with Cloutier’s first goal.
Cloutier scored again with 19 seconds left in the first quarter to put the Flyers up 2-1 heading to the second.
The Flyers scored first in the third period on a nice full-length sprint and finish from defenseman Liam Anderson.
Adam Hinkley responded for the Raiders with a goal two minutes later on an assist from Tiger Hopkins, cutting Waynflete’s lead to 8-3.
Spurred by a Lukas Bergeron goal early in the fourth, Oak Hill tried to make a fourth-quarter run, but the Flyers’ stingy defense stood strong, holding the Raiders scoreless the remainder of the game.
“We just couldn’t find the back of the net. When we had something going, we dropped the ball and just couldn’t hold on to it,” Raiders coach Joey Hinkley said. “When (Hopkins) did have the ball, he was double- and triple-teamed.”
Waynflete’s defense, led by goalie Avi Israel’s nine saves, held Oak Hill/Monmouth/Lisbon to just four goals, their lowest scoring output of the season. The Flyers also limited Hopkins, a record-setting goal scorer for the Raiders, to one assist.
“When we keep those one-on-one matchups, when we hold those one-on-one matchups, that’s the biggest thing for us today,” Waynflete coach Andrew Leach said. “We had the same defensive game plan in this game that we had in the state championship game. We knew we had to come out with those same matchups, lock him (Hopkins) off, and see what they do with it.”
Waynflete’s matchup with North Yarmouth will be a rematch of the Flyers’ first game of the season, which they lost 7-4.
“They’re our biggest rival. They’re very strong, attack all the way through, very similar to Oak Hill… we’ve got to play one more big game and I think we can do it,” Leach added.
“We played them earlier in the season, [and it] didn’t go too well,” Cloutier said. “I think our confidence was much lower at the beginning of the season. We’ve sort of built an identity for ourselves since then.”
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