Stupinski lifts Mount Ararat past Bangor

BANGOR – The members of the Bangor High School girls soccer team faced the most important game of their lives during Saturday’s Eastern Maine Class A championship.

Coach Jeff Ingalls’ fourth-seeded Rams made a strong showing, but they weren’t able to hold a playoff-tested and offensively talented Mount Ararat team in check.

Senior striker Erika Stupinski set up three first-half goals and scored one in the second half as the No. 7 Eagles of Topsham earned a 4-1 victory over the Rams on a mild fall evening at Bangor High School.

Coach Sam Chard’s 14-3-1 Mount Ararat squad advances to Saturday’s Class A state title game against Western Maine winner Greely of Cumberland Center. It was the Eagles’ second regional crown in three years.

Bangor concludes its most successful season ever at 14-2-2.

“We’ve had a tradition during regular season of being a pretty good team, but this is our first mark that we’ve made, the farthest that we’ve ever gotten, so that means a lot to us,” said Rams senior captain Katie Poirier.

Mount Ararat took advantage of outstanding speed and tactical passing while scoring three times during a span of 15 minutes in the first half.

Bangor attacked hard during the first six minutes, but the Eagles showed their ability to counterattack. An apparently harmless clear from the left side out to midfield was alertly headed by Stupinski out to the left wing.

Freshman forward Kyla Woodhouse ran onto the ball, raced down the sideline and split two defenders before rifling a shot into the far upper corner of the net.

“We know that [Ilyse Angst’s] an all-star ‘keeper, but we didn’t know how well she’d been tested this year, so we did a good job at that and we got one [goal] and that fired us right up, so we kept pressuring,” said Stupinski, who was hounded throughout by Bangor defender Danielle Lainez.

The Eagles, who outshot the Rams 20-12, scored again 16 minutes later when Angst (7 saves) stopped the initial shot by Stupinski, but had no chance on freshman Danielle Plourde’s rebound blast.

“What put us in the hole is they made those two great shots,” Ingalls said. “We ran into an offensive juggernaut here.”

Mount Ararat scored again less than two minutes later. This time, Stupinski eluded two Ram defenders and moved deep into the area on the left side, then slid a soft pass across to Chelsea DeLuc, who jammed a shot past Angst to make it 3-0.

“She can shoot; she can dish the ball. She’s the complete package in a player,” Chard said of Stupinski.

Bangor responded with aggressive second-half play. Midfielder Jessie Roberts and forwards Laura Clarke and Serena Dubois spent quite a bit of time inside the Eagles’ penalty area.

The Rams made it 3-1 only 5:18 into the second half when Dubois got a short pass in front to Clarke, who drilled a shot under the crossbar.

About 12 minutes later, Roberts launched a 30-yard shot that ricocheted off the middle of the crossbar. She followed that up with a close-range attempt that was smothered by Eagles freshman ‘keeper Jessica Stahl (7 saves).

Bangor threatened again with 13:55 remaining when Clarke controlled a high lob by Marion Bradford and broke in on goal, only to have Stahl dive and stop a soft shot off the chewed up turf.

“If Jessie hadn’t hit the bar or Laura’s shot had gone in … I thought we played very well,” Ingalls said.

Stupinski ended the suspense with 3:11 left, directing a Woodhouse corner kick off her body and into the net.

Poirier, Bradford and Lainez were tireless on defense for Bangor.