Earley, Uhrin lift Hampden by Skowhegan

HAMPDEN – The Hampden Academy boys soccer team is an undefeated aggregation of many talents.

One of those skills is finishing plays, and making the most of scoring opportunities.

The Broncos have two top finishers in junior forwards Martin Earley and Jay Uhrin, who combined for five goals and an assist Tuesday evening as No. 5 Hampden pulled away from No. 12 Skowhegan 6-1 in an Eastern Maine Class A preliminary-round game.

The win advances 14-0-1 Hampden to Friday’s quarterfinals against No. 4 Bangor, a 3-0 winner over Morse of Bath on Tuesday. Hampden and Bangor already have met twice, with the Broncos opening the season with a 3-2 victory at Bangor on Sept. 3 and the teams then battling to a 1-1 tie at Hampden on Oct. 7.

“I’m looking forward to it,” said Earley, who had three goals and an assist against Skowhegan. “We’re rivals, obviously, and we’re both good teams, so it’s going to be a good game.”

Uhrin added two goals against the Indians, the first goal of the game on a feed from Andre Cushing 11:13 into the match and perhaps the game’s decisive goal 31 seconds after intermission to give the Broncos a 3-1 lead.

“I think this is the fastest team we’ve seen in terms of guys up front who can really go to the net and produce some good things,” said Skowhegan coach Peter Vigue.

Skowhegan (5-10) played a competitive first half, being outshot just 10-7 and forging a 1-1 tie midway through the period when senior Dylan Wentworth scored from close range after taking a nice cross from Dustin Aldrich.

Earley gave Hampden a 2-1 lead with 16:47 left in the half, gaining control of a long, high kick by Keith Zanardi from midfield and blasting a 10-yard shot past Skowhegan goalie Walter Powell.

But while Hampden took the lead into the break, the Broncos were far from satisfied.

“I ripped into them a little bit,” said Hampden coach Ryan Shaw. “Skowhegan I would say won 80 percent of the balls in the first half, and at playoff time you can’t let that happen, especially if you’re planning on bigger things ahead. We need to control the ball and play our game. If we do that, we’ll be all right, and we did that in the second half.”

Uhrin’s second goal came soon after that chat, as he just beat Powell to a long lead pass from Nattapong Kongsuriya near the edge of the penalty area. When Uhrin gained control, he was left with an open net, and Hampden suddenly had a two-goal lead.

“I just saw [Kongsuriya] kick it, and nobody else was running, so I just took off after it and tried to put it in the net,” Uhrin said.

Earley scored again with 20:26 left on a nice set-up from senior Billy Shannon, and added his third goal three minutes later. Josh McNutt capped off the scoring on an Earley assist with 8:14 remaining.

“We knew we didn’t play as well as we could have played in the first half, and we were really trying to step up and show them how we could play,” said Earley. “We know that if we come out hard we can play with any team.”

As evidence, Hampden outshot Skowhegan 11-1 in the second half.

“That first goal in the second half got them going, and then they just brought a lot of pressure on us after that,” said Vigue. “Their team speed really broke us down eventually. We worked hard in the first half and it was a good battle for a long time, but their talent and speed wore us out.”

Hampden goalie Max Silver made five saves on eight shots, while Powell made six saves on 21 shots for Skowhegan.