Bangor prevails after 4OT> Brunswick next up for Rams on Wednesday

BANGOR – It’s amazing how the one shot that a field of players waits for – after nearly two hours – can seem beside the fact.

After the Bangor High girls soccer team ended a 115-minute battle against Mt. Blue with a goal in the fourth overtime Saturday, the scorer, Rams striker Beth Bosley, was more amazed at Kristan Strout’s remarkable assist than her shot that ended the Class A quarterfinal game.

“Kristen played a really great ball. It fell right in front of me,” said Bosley whose low shot to the left corner beat Mt. Blue goalie Rachel Roberts and ended the game with 5 minutes, 37 seconds left in the fourth overtime.

A shaken Roberts, who made 14 saves on 18 shots for Mt. Blue of Farmington, said minutes after the deciding score, she couldn’t even recall the one that got by her.

“I don’t even remember [the goal]. I was lucky on a few goals. I came out of the goal a couple of times and it hit the crossbar,” Roberts said.

And while Rams coach Jeff Ingalls was describing how good the Cougars were before the match, afterward, he was busy pondering how good Brunswick was.

The No. 2 Dragons, who beat the Rams 2-1 in overtime in the Class A semifinals last year, will host the Rams for a rematch of that game on Wednesday. finished 8-4-3.

Given the Rams lost most of the 50-50 battles at the start of Saturday’s game and found the crossbar twice at the end, once with 7:17 left in regulation, the fact they were able to solve Roberts was an achievement nobody took lightly.

“That’s the best team we’ve seen,” Ingalls said. “The KVAC is tough. They won half of the one-on-one battles the first half. We dominated as the game went on.”

What gave the Rams an edge was a backfield that only got better as the marathon match got longer. At the end of the second half, backs Tama Catell, Leslie Bradford and Strout gave Bangor momentum by keeping the ball on Mt. Blue’s half of the field.

Backstopping Bangor’s win – its 13th straight – was veteran junior goalie Annie Wright who had 12 saves on 13 shots, one on Megan Woodcock’s hard breakaway shot in the second half.

What also gave the Rams an edge was good old-fashioned hard work.

The week leading up to the match, the Bangor boys soccer team worked out with the girls team to make them quicker and play more aggressively.

“We were training hard this week, it brought up our endurance,” Bosley said.

And, at 10 a.m. Saturday, Strout was out on the Rams field three hours before the game, practicing her winning pass.

“I drove by the field and saw her through the trees practicing that chip,” Ingalls said.