Bears end goal drought, beat Huskies

ORONO – They attacked relentlessly. At times it looked as though they had snuck a couple of extra players onto the field.

Finally, their diligence was rewarded.

A pair of Evergreen High School (Col.) products, Molly Shea and Kate DeStefano, combined to end the University of Maine women’s soccer team’s scoring drought at 809 minutes and 20 seconds and the Bears added three more to post a 4-0 win over Northeastern University Thursday.

Shea converted a long diagonal pass from DeStefano 29:02 into the first half to provide Maine with its first goal since it beat Charleston Southern (S.C.) 4-2 on Sept. 1.

Senior sweeper-turned-striker Suzanne Grant scored her first career goal 2:15 into the second half and junior striker Carolyn Fotiu added a pair of goals in the final 8:12 as Maine improved to 2-6-2 overall, 1-3 in America East.

Northeastern, which started eight freshmen and sophomores, fell to 2-8-1, 0-3 in conference play.

“Molly’s goal was awesome,” said tri-captain Grant. “After that went in, we knew we could relax. We could breathe again. We’ve tried so hard to break this drought. It felt good.”

Maine coach David Patterson, whose team outshot Northeastern 24-4 and generated a 14-0 edge in corner kicks, said, “I’m very pleased with the win. We played well, we played hard and we created some great chances. This is very reflective of the way we’ve played this season. We’ve kept possession of the ball and made bundles of chances.”

The difference was four of those chances found the back of the net.

Shea’s goal was aided by a miscommunication between NU junior goalie Cindy Cochran and one of her defenders.

“Katie sent in a really nice ball that penetrated their defense,” said Shea, who made a run from left to right across the top of the penalty area. “I was on the defender’s back, they did miscommunicate and the ball deflected to the right. I had an open net at that point so all I had to to was tap it in [the short side]. It felt great.”

Maine dodged a bullet with five minutes left in the half when freshman goalie Mandy Cronin got caught way out of her net and NU’s Melissa Cohen curled a 45-yarder off the near side post.

The tireless Grant, who was omnipresent throughout the match, was rewarded for her work thanks to some good fortune.

Kristen Maxwell sent a long ball into the penalty area where Fotiu got a head on it. It rolled to Cochran as Grant hustled toward her.

Cochran got to it first but fumbled it and it went behind her.

“The ball and the ground were wet and it popped out of my hands,” said Cochran.

Grant simply deposited it into the empty net for her first goal in 47 career games.

Moments later, Cronin kept the lead 2-0 by diving out at the feet of NU’s unmarked Mia Kiistala and smothering her shot. Maine defender Christy Hasselfeldt then blocked the rebound.

Fotiu capped the win by converting a perfect diagonal through ball from DeStefano with a low 14-yard shot to Cochran’s right and, 3:43 later, she headed Shea’s cross into the near side corner.

Cronin made two saves en route to her second shutout while Cochran finished with 10 saves including several gems.