Earley boosts Broncs Hampden holds off rival Bangor

BANGOR – Martin Earley spent the last 25 minutes of Friday’s Eastern Maine Class A soccer quarterfinal on the bench.

Not that the Hampden Academy boys soccer team didn’t miss him. But by the time junior forward Earley left the game with an ankle injury, the damage was already done. It was Earley’s goal that boosted No. 4 Hampden into the semifinals with a 3-2 win over No. 5 Bangor at the high school field.

It was the third meeting of the year for the heated rivals. The Broncos took two of those games and the teams played to a tie in the third.

Hampden, now 15-0-1, will meet face the winner of the quarterfinal between No. 9 Oxford Hills and No. 1 Waterville in the semifinals Tuesday. Bangor finishes its season with a 12-3-1 record.

“They’ve got a great player at every spot on the field and we were right there with them,” Bangor coach Adam Leach said. “I couldn’t ask any more from my guys. We were never out of it and they never had us put away. It was a back-and-forth fight. One team wins, one team loses.”

Bangor rallied twice to tie the score. But the Rams couldn’t manage a third comeback, even when Earley scored with 30 minutes left in the second half.

Earley’s winner came off a pass from Andre Cushing, who was running behind Earley. Cushing passed the ball ahead to Earley, who was at the left post and shot it in past Bangor goalie Aaron Taft. It was his 27th of the season.

“We had a lot of good [passing] combinations,” said Earley, who landed awkwardly on his ankle in the second half. “I guess that one just worked.”

Hampden dominated the second half with a 7-2 edge in shots on goal, as both teams played a solid passing game. The Broncos never relaxed as the Rams pressed late.

“You never really know about Bangor,” Earley said. “They get these five-minute runs where they just dominate, and you never really know because they can just put one in.”

No player did that better for Bangor this season than Dylan George, who scored 26 goals this fall.

“We just had a man on him the whole game, basically the whole defense [helped],” HA defender Matt Pierce said. “We just wanted to keep him off the ball.”

That left room for Bangor’s Cameron Cormier, who had scored only two goals this year.

After Hampden’s Joseph Uhrin nailed a shot to Taft’s left to give the Broncs a 1-0 lead six minutes into the game, Cormier headed in a cross from Troy Jellison to tie it less than two minutes later.

Hampden regained the lead when Uhrin blasted a shot off Taft’s hands with 17:43 to go in the first half; Cormier made it 2-2 with 1:28 left when he booted in a cross from Zac Martin.

“When teams try to focus on [Dylan], that opens up other players,” Leach said.

Taft stopped eight of 16 shots, while Hampden’s Max Silver saved four of six shots.