George leads Bangor to victory over Cony

BANGOR – Sure, it was a Class A preliminary round playoff game between the Nos. 13 and 4 seeds, the host team had given up just one goal in its last 10 games, and had beaten the visitors fairly easily in the preseason.

Even with the knowledge that the No. 4 Bangor Rams haven’t been able to generate a lot of offense lately, nobody expected Wednesday afternoon’s playoff game at Bangor High to be easy.

The Rams made it look easy, however, by scoring early and often en route to a 6-0 victory over Cony of Augusta and their ninth shutout of the season. The 12-1-2 Rams will host No. 5 Hampden Academy on Saturday. Cony finishes up 6-9.

“We weren’t scoring a lot of goals late in the season, but we’ve been working on getting the ball out wide and centering it in, getting more movement, and creating some space,” said senior fullback Dylan George, who helped lead the Rams’ charge with two goals, both in the first half.

George was on the ball despite still suffering the effects of some bumps, bruises and a nasty cut on his nose from a Tuesday night car accident that caused his head to hit the steering wheel.

“I got five stitches. I was worried about getting hit there, but it didn’t happen,” said George, who scored the game’s first goal, unassisted, with 33 minutes left in the half. “I didn’t go up for headers as much as I usually do.”

Almost 12 minutes later, George scored again.

“We got beat on the outsides, and that’s been a problem for us,” said Cony coach Nate Benoit. “We marked up on George, but he found a way to get free. They spread us out and finished their chances.”

Junior fullback Tony Martinez also scored twice, once in each half. Midfielder/back Troy Jellison assisted on two first-half goals.

Senior goalie Austin Smith and backup Adam Taft notched Bangor’s ninth shutout of the season with six saves. The Rams outshot Cony 15-6.

“We have a very young team with only three seniors and this is probably one of Bangor’s best teams in the last five or 10 years,” said Benoit, who coached some of Bangor’s players at Husson College camps and clinics. “We were a little overmatched.”

Senior back Zak Martin helped Cony funnel the ball to the wings on the attack and away from Bangor’s half of the field for much of the game as Bangor outshot Cony 15-6.

“They were using three forwards and leaving a guy really, really deep, so I was coming back more to pick him up and I wasn’t able to go up as much as I usually do,” said Martin.

“I thought we played really well out of the stopper positions,” said Bangor coach Adam Leach. “Everyone at midfield played a good game. Dan Malmer, Matt Goodell, Adam Towne… I think they had some of their best moments of the season.”

Cony goalie Dan Tyler came up with nine saves.