George scores 3 times as Rams regain intensity

BANGOR – The Bangor High School boys soccer team played a “terrible first half” in Saturday’s 3-2 win over Presque Isle, according to Ram junior striker Dylan George, and they didn’t want a repeat performance against Brewer Tuesday night.

George and the Rams took care of business early, scoring three times during a dominant first half en route to a 4-1 victory.

George had the first two goals, his 17th and 18th of the season, before Brazilian exchange student Caique Lopes capped the first-half scoring.

Adam Towne extended the lead to 4-0 in the second half with his fifth before Brewer sophomore Marc Relford scored his third off an indirect free kick with 22:40 remaining.

“We wanted to come out and play like a number one team. We wanted to play with intensity from the beginning,” said George, whose Rams outshot the Witches 19-4 over the first 40 minutes.

Bangor, which is atop the Eastern Maine Class A points standings, improved to 8-1 with its eighth straight win.

Brewer coach Darren Hall said he was afraid his Witches, who fell to 3-5, were going to be complacent early because “we played really well against them a week ago [in a 3-2 loss].”

That’s exactly what happened.

“And Bangor wanted to make a point,” Hall added.

The highly skilled George was superb as he parlayed his exceptional foot skills, field vision, and bursts of speed into one scoring chance after another.

His first goal was opportunistic as he easily beat Witch defenders to the far post to tap in the rebound of a JoJo Hwalek shot from the top of the 18.

Hwalek’s one-hopper had plenty of steam on it and it bounced off the chest of Witch goalie Ben Davis to George.

That came with 25:25 left in the half and was Bangor’s 11th shot at goal compared to Brewer’s one.

George scored his second 12:02 later with goalie Jessefa Murphy picking up the assist.

Murphy’s long punt bounced and George was surrounded by two Witch defenders.

“One of their defenders had it, but he slipped and I picked it up, faked a shot with my left foot, and shot it with my right,” said George, who beat Davis to the far corner from 10 yards out.

Lopes made it 3-0 with 9:20 left.

George slipped the ball to Eric Pelletier on the left flank and his cross skipped off Davis’ hands to Lopes, who slotted it in.

Towne scored 6:05 into the second half when George’s blocked shot deflected to him and he drilled home a 9-yarder off the body of backup goalie Jeremy Proulx.

Relford rocketed his free kick neatly into the far corner past Ram backup goalie Casey Quaglia. Shunsuk Sasaki tapped the ball to him.

“They’re a very good team, a very skilled team,” said Relford.

Murphy saw eight shots but didn’t have to make a save before Quaglia came on to make three stops on five shots.

Davis saved five of 19 shots and Proulx had one stop on 10 shots.

JV: Bangor 3-1