September 20, 2024
Sports

GSA girls pull Curtins on Searsport’s season

SEARSPORT – Partial sunshine graced the field shortly before Tuesday’s Eastern Maine Class C girls soccer quarterfinal between Searsport and George Stevens Academy of Blue Hill.

And the aftermath of the match featured cloudy, relatively dry conditions.

But during the match was another story, as a deluge of rain was complemented by a deluge of George Stevens shots that lifted coach Steve Bemiss’s Eagles to a 3-0 victory.

Doron Curtin scored twice and Quinn Curtin added one goal, all in the second half, as the Eagles avenged a late-season overtime loss to the Vikings.

“I thought as a team we played great,” said George Stevens co-captain Roz Brokaw, who anchored a defense that yielded just one long-range shot on goal. “I can’t complain about any plays that we made. I thought that altogether we were really a cohesive unit, we played well together.”

The fifth-seeded Eagles (11-2-2) advance to Saturday’s regional semifinals against the winner of Thursday’s rescheduled quarterfinal between No. 1 Orono and No. 8 Houlton. No. 4 Searsport finishes 11-3-1.

George Stevens, which split two regular-season matches with the Vikings, controlled play throughout, but was stymied in the first half by Searsport goalie Megan Higgins.

Higgins, in her first game back from a shoulder injury suffered midway through the season, made 12 of her 20 saves before intermission.

“She had a incredible performance for someone who’s just come back,” said Searsport coach Mike Garcelon. “She worked hard and couldn’t wait to get back, and it’s nice to know I have her back for another year.”

George Stevens’ persistence paid off in the second half, as the Eagles scored three times on 11 shots on goal.

“Our plan was to get as many shots on goal as possible even if they were straight at the goalie because the goalie has a chance of slipping and we can get some rebounds, which we did,” said GSA senior midfielder and co-captain Emily Peake.

Quinn Curtin broke the deadlock 7:45 into the final half, taking a short pass from Grace Johnson and lofting a shot from 25 yards out that made its way over Higgins and inside the left corner of the goal.

“I took one step to my right with the ball and dribbled it out and saw that I had a clearing so I just decided to just go for it,” said Curtin.

Doron Curtin made it 2-0 with 12:15 left, when she took a pass from Alida Peake near the 18-yard line after Higgins slipped and blasted a point-blank shot into the open net.

“It came off to the right and Alida just crossed it to the goal and it was right there,” said Curtin.

Doron Curtin scored again four minutes later on the rebound of one of several shots the Eagles got off a corner kick.

Searsport made several good offensive rushes during the match, particularly by striker Kali Berenyi, but the Vikings frequently were caught offsides by GSA’s trapping defense.

“We just have it drilled into our minds that we’re going to try to get teams offsides,” said Brokaw, “so every chance we can we pull up and hope we can get them to do that.”

That strategy enabled GSA goalie Hannah Van der Eb to have a relatively uneventful afternoon, making just one save while earning the shutout.

“You don’t get that many great chances against Stevens anyway,” said Garcelon. “Then you take four or five good chances away on offsides and that makes it really difficult.”

eclark@bangordailynews.net

990-8045


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