Brewer, Hampden girls finish in tie

The girls soccer teams from Hampden Academy and Brewer High School have met three times this season.

Despite the regular season being officially over, the two schools will do it one more time, possibly on Tuesday – with a postseason preliminary berth on the line.

Hampden and Brewer finished in a dead heat for ninth place in the final Eastern Maine Class A Heal Point Standings, released Sunday.

The Broncos and Witches looked identical across the board with 7-5-2 records, 22.86 preliminary indices, and 82.91 tournament indices.

With 18 teams making up EM Class A, the ninth place finisher was supposed to travel to the No. 8 school – in this case Presque Isle.

However, whereas the two schools finished in a tie – and split the regular season series 1-1-1 – a playoff game will be held to find out which team will trek north to play in the preliminary game.

“That’s my understanding,” said HA coach Randy Dodge. “It’s us and Brewer. We’ve identical records against identical seasons. It’s been an identical season. It’s one of those things. It’s kind of strange.”

“We’re just tickled to death to be playing,” said Brewer coach Mark Savage. “We had pretty much packed it in.”

Hampden athletic director Bill Connors is a member of the Maine Principals’ Association soccer committee. He said he will be participating in a Monday morning conference call to set up the particulars of the playoff game.

A field in Bangor – possibly Bangor High’s new field with its lights – will more than likely host the game on Tuesday.

Hampden beat Brewer 2-1 in the first meeting, the two teams tied 1-1 in the second meeting, and Brewer bested Hampden 2-1 in the final matchup between the two schools.

“I think we know each other very well,” Savage said. “We know what they’re going to do and they know what we’re going to do. I think we’re two evenly matched teams. At the beginning of the season, I was kind of upset to see we would be playing them three times. But it’s worked out to our advantage, I guess.”

The winner will travel to No. 8 Presque Isle later in the week. The prelim winner gets to face No. 1 Mount Ararat of Topsham.

In Western Maine Class A field hockey, meanwhile, Biddeford and Westbrook find themselves in the same boat – only tied for second place instead with identical records, PIs, and TIs.