NYA blanks GSA for ‘C’ girls title

BATH – Although it wasn’t printed on team T-shirts or any of the banners fans waved at Saturday morning’s Class C state championship soccer game, it was the unspoken, if not unofficial motto, for the North Yarmouth Academy girls this season.

Not on my watch.

After winning three state titles the last three seasons, NYA’s seniors weren’t about to have the streak snapped under their leadership. So it should come as no surprise two seniors in particular played a big part in the Panthers’ 2-0 victory over George Stevens Academy of Blue Hill at McMann Field.

Senior Erin Lachance bent it like Beckham to all but ice the win only 6 minutes, 17 seconds into the second half. Her hard, laser-beam shot on a direct kick from the left corner of the field grazed the left hand of leaping GSA goalie Kayla Eaton, but kept sailing into the high right corner of the net.

“I thought it was going to go over the crossbar, but then I didn’t really think she was going to shoot,” said Eaton.

The Eagles’ acrobatic junior goalie expected Lachance’s shot to be more of a cross for a teammate to try and head in.

“It was kind of perfect. My brother taught me this summer how to bend the ball, so it kind of helped my shot,” Lachance said. “I figured if it didn’t bend, someone can put a head on it.”

The goal was an exclamation point of sorts for the 16-1 Panthers, who outshot GSA 16-4 overall despite managing just three shots in the second half.

“I’m not really sure if we limited their shots in the second half or if they limited themselves,” said GSA coach Steve Bemiss. “This is easily the best team we’ve played this year.”

Good thing Eaton saved one of her best efforts of the year for them. The score could have easily been twice as bad had it not been for the junior goalkeeper’s lunging saves and aggressive play between the posts.

It was quite an improvement over her last state final appearance – against NYA – in 2004.

“My freshman year, I started in goal and it was a nightmare. It was awful,” she said. “I didn’t know what I was doing and they scored five goals on me.”

Eaton knew exactly what she was doing Saturday, making several highlight reel-worthy saves among her 12 total. The best came with 13:30 to play, off a sprawling dive in which she deflected a dead-on shot off her fingertips to the left corner while lying on the ground.

NYA’s first goal came with 8:34 left in the first half as freshman Courtney Dumont redirected a rebounded shot saved by Eaton from the left post into the left corner.

“I dove for the ball and got a hand on it, and it was going to go wide, but one of our defenders tried to kick it on a clear-out and it bounced off somebody,” Eaton said. “I dove again, but it got knocked out of my hands again and I didn’t have time to recover to make the save.”

Maddie Lane made two saves on four GSA shots. Sarah Drouin came in with two minutes left but saw no shots.

The Eagles wound up a better-than-expected season with a 12-4-2 record.

“With 10 first-year players on the team, I’m pretty happy with where we were,” Bemiss said. “At the start of the season, we figured we’d be happy if we were in contention for the playoffs. We thought a little over .500 would be really good.”