Appreciating the beauty in a playoff soccer blowout

ELLSWORTH – Blowouts are a part of life. They happen. A lot of sports fans look down their noses at them, especially when they occur in a game as big as a high school state soccer championship. That’s because a lot of fans fail to look beyond the score.

At the high school level, blowouts generally come in two varieties.

There’s your Type A embarrassment, caused by the combination of one team playing well and another team playing poorly.

Then there’s the Type B blowout. This one is rarer. In a Type B, the losing team can play its normal game, the game that got it all the way to the final. It’s just that the winning team plays at an almost supernatural level.

Saturday’s Class C boys soccer state game was a Type B. Your final: Western Maine champion Wiscasset 4, Eastern Maine champ Piscataquis Community of Guilford 0. It wasn’t close. But it was pretty.

Paul Stearns, the Piscataquis coach, has been around the goal a few times in his 17 seasons. He’d taken three previous Pirate teams to the state game, winning the whole enchilada back in ’85. Stearns never saw any of his teams run up against a club that played like Wiscasset played Saturday.

“It’s like in boxing when a fighter gets in the ring,” observed Stearns as his players headed quietly to the showers. “He hits the other guy and finds out the other guy is better than he is. There’s nothing you can do. He’s just better.”

Wiscasset was just better. Neutral observers standing outside the fence at Del Luce Field could be overheard exclaiming about the Redskins’ skill as the WM champs mounted rush after rush, either threading pinpoint passes through the befuddled Pirates or showing amazing individual speed with the ball while peppering PCHS goalie Tony Draper with 26 shots.

The suspense was over in a hurry, but not the artistry.

“I kind of knew after our second goal it was done,” said Wiscasset senior striker Eric York, his team’s star among stars.

York knows done. He scored three goals on the day. He scored three goals in the ‘Skins’ 4-0 victory over Dirigo in the WM final. Add ’em all up and he’s scored 26 goals ths season, 65 in his career.

“That’s what he is, a finisher,” is how ninth-year Wiscasset coach Bob Sommers appraised the 5-foot-9, 150-pound converted midfielder.

But this wasn’t just a one-man exhibition. That’s the point.

Let’s go to the replay:

Wiscasset immediately established its dominance. The Redskins had three grade A shots on net in the first 10 minutes of the game. They kept the ball almost exclusively in the PCHS end all game thanks to strong midfield play spearheaded by skilled halfback Al Zaher, an exchange student from Egypt.

“Walk like an Egyptian,” cracked PCHS’s Stearns in admiration of Zaher’s dribbling and passing skills. “York and Al are by far the two best players we’ve seen this year.”

Tellingly, it wasn’t either York or Zaher who scored the first Wiscasset goal. That achievement went to senior striker Alan Moeller, who chased a header by York into the box, beating onrushing PCHS goalie Draper to the ball before dinking it into the center of the net.

Nine minutes later, Moeller returned the favor, finding an open area with a diagonal cross. York greeted the ball with a one-time blast from 20 yards that Draper, screened, barely saw. Two-zip.

Now, the Pirates were caught in Wiscasset’s beautiful web.

“We were behind, so we knew we had to go after them if we were going to have a chance,” sighed Stearns.

Except, going after Wiscasset meant taking chances in an effort to produce offense. That meant pulling a PCHS defender off York at the start of the second half.

It took York less than two minutes to capitalize on being unmarked.

With the Pirates bunched up in the offensive end, a long kick bounced through to midfield. York settled the ball, split two PCHS defenders, and beat everyone to the goal mouth, tapping a grounder into the right corner past a diving Draper.

York would score another goal, a breathtaking back-to-the-net settle of a long kick followed by a pivot-and-shot in one motion. “Amazing,” said his coach.

Defense? Wiscasset sophomore goalie Tom Deschaine had to make only seven saves, facing 15 shots.

“We’ve got eight seniors here who have been together for four years,” is how York explained the outcome as he hugged the golden soccer ball signifying Wiscasset’s first boys soccer state title. “No one was going to stand in our way.”

Type B. Definitely.