OAKLAND – The Messalonskee High School girls soccer team arrived late at its own field for Wednesday’s Class A semifinal against No. 6 Bangor and, as a result, allowed the Rams to get a head start.

However, the No. 2 Eagles quickly turned pandemonium into perfection. They took control of the lead and the game to win 3-1 and improve to 13-1-2.

The Eagles will travel to No. 1 Brunswick for Saturday’s Eastern Maine final.

“We didn’t have a good practice,” said Sarah Giguere, who scored two of the Eagles goals. “We got to the field late, then the captains had to run in to get the equipment and bring it down to the field. We only had 10 minutes to warm up. The coach was pretty frustrated.”

Eagles coach Deb Cormier said she only feared the unknown.

“I knew they would be tough, but I didn’t know what to expect,” Cormier said with much relief after the win.

“The only one I knew to watch was No. 23, Sarah Parcak. But I just put Heather on her. Heather did a great job marking. Whenever I need someone marked, I put Heather on them.”

Cormier said once her team figured out what to expect from the Bangor offense, they took control with ease. It didn’t take them long.

“We weren’t quite prepared,” Cormier said. “But the goal woke us up.”

The wake-up call came from Bangor’s Angela Pooler who started the scoring by firing a Julie Murray pass into the right corner of the Eagles’ goal at 21 minutes, 25 seconds into the first half.

But the Eagles caught the Rams at 30:06 into that half when Cate Cheevers took a Kate McKay pass, dribbled around Rams goalie Anne Wright and drilled in the ball.

Then, with three minutes left in the half, Kate O’Boyle fed Giguere a nice pass across the goal and the persistent Giguere fired it at the goal three times until it found its way past Wright.

O’Boyle said after the game she wasn’t worried.

“After they scored, we outplayed them,” O’Boyle said in a matter-of-fact tone. “We didn’t get down.”

Giguere sealed the victory with 2:50 left in the game, again converting an O’Boyle assist. To Giguere, who leads the Eagles in scoring with 10 goals, she was just taking care of business.

“That second shot was my insurance goal,” she said.

Yet after the Eagles proved their dominance, they still felt they could have played better, even Giguere.

“All of my shots were pretty hard shots,” Giguere said. “But I kept missing the goal. We had a lot of open shots in the second half. But we weren’t there. Kate McKay fed me a lot of passes, but my timing was off. It’s frustrating.”

It was far more frustrating for Bangor.

“After we scored , we weren’t marking like we could have,” said Rams coach Mark Savage. “Then they tied it and went ahead. We allowed them to do it. They have several kids that play in summer leagues. We don’t have those kind of players.”

Karen McMullin helped the Eagles with seven saves on 18 shots. Wright and Emily Morse combined with 18 saves on 22 shots for the Rams, who ended their season 13-3.