BLUE HILL – For the George Stevens Academy girls’ soccer team, the path to postseason success has gone through Madawaska in recent years.

GSA defeated the Owls in the 2004 Eastern Maine Class C final and in a 2006 semifinal, while Madawaska edged the Eagles to win the 2005 regional championship.

Their fourth postseason meeting in as many years had similarly high stakes but far less drama Wednesday afternoon, as a goal by senior Laura Overton just 32 seconds into the match propelled unbeaten and top-ranked GSA to a 3-0 semifinal win over Madawaska.

“We try to come out hard for the first five minutes, whether it’s at the beginning of a game or beginning of a half or after a goal,” said GSA junior Emily Peake. “When we scored right off, it made things a lot easier, although we still had to keep working hard because one goal isn’t very much of a deficit to come back from.”

Quinn Curtin and Leah Mattson added goals for 15-0-1 George Stevens, which will play for its second straight EM title and third in four years when it hosts No. 3 Lee Academy (16-0) in Saturday’s regional final.

Lee, the two-time defending Class D state champion that has moved up to Class C this season, defeated Orono 4-0 in its semifinal.

No. 4 Madawaska ends its season with a 12-3-1 record.

GSA took the game’s opening kickoff and immediately applied offensive pressure, and a flurry in the goal crease ended when Overton gained possession of an attempted Madawaska clearing pass and scored past Owls’ goalie Stephanie Nadeau.

“We had it around the goal for several seconds kicking it back and forth and we finally managed to put it in,” said Overton. “It was a pretty lucky goal, I think. It went between [the goalie’s] legs.”

Armed with that lead the Eagles continued to control play, and were rewarded with 21:57 left until intermission when Curtin gained possession of the ball near the end line on the left side of the field, eluded a defender without going out-of-bounds and then scored with a close-range shot just inside the near goal post.

“I think the ball was played down to the end line, and I took a few touches and turned it inside and just put it on net,” said Curtin, one of seven sophomores on the 22-player GSA roster.

Madawaska mounted sustained pressure late in the half, with its best chance coming when Jamie Daigle sent Susan Lavertu in alone on GSA goalie Kayla Eaton from the right wing, only to have Lavertu blast a shot off the near post.

“When you get scored on 30 seconds into the game that will take a lot of the wind out of you,” said Madawaska coach Dan Cyr. “But we kind of found our focus and started playing a little better after that.

“We had three very good opportunities, [especially] an indirect in the area that we probably could have finished but was unlucky on and when hit the post on another chance, so our chances were there.”

Mattson scored the only goal of the second half with 4:55 remaining after receiving a long lead pass from Peake that sent her in alone on Nadeau.

GSA finished with a 14-6 advantage in shots on goal, with Eaton preserving the shutout with six saves behind a defense led by sweeper Stevie Theoharidis and stopper Roz Brokaw.

Nadeau also was strong in net, finishing with 11 saves for Madawaska.