Rams seek momentum from victory Bangor blanks Brewer

BANGOR – For a Bangor girls soccer team that will need a big push in the rest of the season to make the playoffs, Monday night’s 4-0 win over Brewer could have some good repercussions.

If so, the Rams can look back to the way they played in the second half of the game at the high school field.

“I thought we really grew together as a team, especially in the second half,” said Bangor midfielder Erin MacDermott, who combined with Emily Heath for a goal in the first half.

“We’ve had some tough losses that haven’t been by a lot,” she added. “I felt today we joined together a lot better than before, and if we can keep that up we’re going to win most of the rest of our games.”

Freshman Amy Hackett scored two goals and senior Serena Dubois had a goal and an assist as Bangor goes to 5-5.

The Witches, who were coming off Friday’s 1-0 upset victory over Hampden, fall to 2-6-1. So the Heal Points the Rams gain from having beaten the Witches twice this year – Bangor defeated Brewer 5-0 last week – will help the Rams, too.

Bangor had a 2-0 lead at halftime Monday but didn’t seem to start clicking until the second half. The Rams had nine shots in the first half and 14 in the second.

Dubois keyed Bangor in the second half. She set up a Hackett goal when she hit a square pass straight across the penalty area to Hackett, who needed only to tap it in for a 3-0 lead.

About 51/2 minutes later Dubois dribbled through the Brewer defense and took it in herself to make it 4-0.

Dubois said the Rams had some trouble adjusting to Brewer’s style of play.

“It’s really hard to play against teams that [boot the ball] because the offense and the whole front line gets messed up,” Dubois said. “So we didn’t do as much passing as we usually do. But we got it together in the second half.”

The Witches had trouble clearing the ball away from the Rams, and that set up a lot of offense for Bangor.

But the Rams missed a lot of chances, too.

“We did everything really well except for finishing,” MacDermott said. “We had shots but we couldn’t get a foot on them or there was something really tiny wrong. But I thought we played extremely well as a team.”

Brewer’s Elizabeth Cote marked Dubois for most of the game, but Cote had trouble keeping up with the strong Ram forward.

“We had Serena controlled most of the time but in the second half … [Cote] got tired,” Brewer coach Bill Schwarz said. “She did a good job but she can’t cover [Dubois] by herself. You can’t leave her alone in front of the net. And I think the girls got a little frustrated at times.”

Bangor goalie Ilyse Angst made five saves on six shots, while Brewer freshman Carolyn Tuck, who had the shutout against Hampden, stopped 12 of 23 shots.