WINSLOW – Jared Delile was one anxious athlete Friday night.

Not merely because of the anticipation of competing in an Eastern Maine Class B boys soccer final the next day. Delile, out since Sept. 26 with a broken big toe on his right foot, just wanted to play.

So when his doctor gave him the medical clearance he needed at 11 o’clock that night, the Winslow High School senior forward was the most relieved guy on the team.

And how did he celebrate? With the game-winning goal, of course, as the Black Raiders edged Ellsworth 1-0 Saturday to win their first regional title. Winslow (14-3) faces two-time defending champion Falmouth (15-1-1) in Saturday’s state final.

“It was great just to get back on the field,” said Delile, who hadn’t even practiced with the team in the 51/2 weeks before the most important match in the program’s history. “I had been working out at the gym, and running, and things like that, but that’s about all I could do.

“It was a bit difficult to get back into the flow. We’ve been getting better as a team, and at times it was little hard to fit in, especially on a day like today when it was cold and hard to breathe wearing a mouthpiece for the first time in a while.”

Whatever rustiness Delile dealt with, he remembered how to finish off a play.

That came with 6:43 left in the first half, when he redirected a centering pass from junior Joe Corey between the legs of an Ellsworth defender and into the net.

The play began as a counterattack after some Ellsworth offensive pressure, with Winslow adeptly working the ball up the field along the right sideline until Corey gained control just beyond midfield. Corey carried the ball to the end line, then crossed the ball into a maze of players in front of the goal. The ball got through to Delile, who – broken toe and all – knew what to do.

“Joe Corey’s been making those passes since he was a freshman and I was a sophomore,” he said. “I make a run across the field, and Joe puts it right to the goal.”

Easier said than done, though, on this day, given wind chills in the teens and the fact Delile’s soccer instincts weren’t all that game-sharpened.

“I had to yell at [Jared] to come across the field,” said Mike Smith, Winslow’s head coach since 1992. “At times he was getting a little lost out there. We’ve really been working during the season to get the forwards to come back and work overlaps and things like that. Jared’s used to getting the ball and doing something with it.

“But since he’s been out he’s been watching, he’s seen what’s going on, he’s been listening to what’s going on. It’s a little different when you get out on the field; there’s been a little bit of an adjustment for him. But he sure made a run to the middle when we needed him to.”

Winslow made that goal stand up with a solid defensive effort featuring goalie Evan Walters. Ellsworth outshot the Black Raiders 10-8, but Walters made six saves and his defensive front men (Tony Gorneau, Nate Boutin, Scott Theobald, Tristan Carrier and Andy Reynolds) worked to deny the Eagles ball possession in the middle of the field.

“Evan was awesome today,” Smith said. “Frankly, we’ve outshot our opponents about 5 to 1 this year, mostly single-digit shots on goal against us, and I think it takes a lot just for a guy in that situation to keep his focus in net. Evan’s been able to do that, and that’s the great thing about having a senior in goal, particularly in these kinds of games.”

Ellsworth’s best scoring bid was one save Walters wasn’t able to grasp, a blast from outside the penalty area late in the second half by Jensen Rich. The ball deflected off Walters’ hand and trickled behind him toward the goal line, but Reynolds was able to clear the ball just before it slid inside the right goal post.

“I was telling my assistant that probably four inches three different times and we’d have had three goals,” said Ellsworth coach Brian Higgins, whose Eagles finish the season 12-4-1. “That’s just the way soccer is.”

And that’s the way football is at Winslow High School, where the Black Raiders have a rich tradition in the American version of the sport and are now establishing a legacy in the worldwide sense of the game.

“We’ve really started to make a name for ourselves,” Corey said. “Football has a great program here, but we just showed the state that Winslow’s not only a football school, it’s a soccer school, too.”