ORONO, Maine — The University of Maine’s defending America East regular season champion Black Bears beat the University of California-Davis 6-2 last season.
It was a much different game on Friday afternoon, but the Black Bears finally broke through with 9:59 remaining on a goal by sophomore forward Mallory Mackesy and she added an insurance goal 5:55 later as UMaine earned a hard-fought 2-0 victory in a mutual America East opener.
UMaine is now 3-4 overall while UC-Davis fell to 1-7.
UMaine will host Stanford at noon Sunday. Stanford beat UMaine 3-1 in their league semifinal matchup in Orono last fall.
UC-Davis will travel to play New Hampshire at 9 a.m. Sunday.
“It’s good to get started in the conference with a win. The first game there is always a bit of jitters. Our forward line is young so for them to score and get some confidence [is important],” said UMaine head coach Josette Babineau. “[UC-Davis] battles all the time. We went overtime with them two years ago. They’re a good hard-working team.”
Two players who are on their respective national teams teamed up for the goals as Czech Republic senior midfielder Tereza Holubcova set up Canadian Mackesy.
The speedy and highly skilled Holubcova cleverly maneuvered into the circle on the first one and fed a pass to freshman Saylor Kuefler, who directed it under junior goalie Sarah Lopez.
Mackesy tapped it over the goal line for her team-leading seventh goal of the season.
“I just went down for the ball and [Kuefler] had a really good stick and just put it under me,” Lopez said.
Holubcova again used her stick skills to set up the next goal as she fed it to Mackesy, who was near the end line and was in a one-on-one with Lopez.
“I pre-scanned to see how she was moving. She took a step and I put it between her legs,” Mackesy said.
“It was very much a waiting game. It’s just a matter of who bites first and I bit first and she had a really good goal,” Lopez said.
In between the goals, the Aggies had a great chance to equalize as Molly Main raced on to a Jordan Anaya pass breaking down the left side of the circle.
But UMaine goalie Mallory Drayer dove out and smothered the shot for her only save of the contest.
“You have to have your eyes up. My fault,” Main said. “I think the goalie dove.”
“That was a big save in that part of the game,” Babineau said.
Mackesy said the team put in a lot of hard work.
“The first half was a little rough but as soon as we came out for the second half, we started putting in the extra work and it was all coming together,” Mackesy said.
Maine had a 16-4 edge in shot attempts over the 60 minutes but Lopez turned in an outstanding performance and made nine saves while Drayer had just the one.
“We lost 6-2 to them last year so to be able to narrow that margin a lot to a very good Maine team is a good step in our direction,” said UC-Davis coach Austin Pile.
The Black Bears had a decided edge in possession in the first half and had UC-Davis pinned in its own half of the field for most of the 30 minutes.
But UC-Davis had a glorious chance to open the scoring in the first two minutes of the game when the Aggies created a two-on-one featuring Skylar Richards and Audrey Lee.
Richards slid a pass over the open Lee in the left side of the circle but Lee rattled her shot off the post to the right of Drayer.
UMaine began to take control of the game and generated two penalty corners but failed to get off a shot on either one.
In the second quarter, UMaine generated a pair of good chances on its third corner of the half. Poppy Lambert’s shot from the top of the circle was stopped by the stacked pads of Lopez and Julie Berk flipped the rebound wide of the open net.
Lopez made a terrific right foot save off Mackesy with six minutes left in the half and another good stop off Kuefler later in the period.
UMaine had eight shot attempts in the first half to UC-Davis’ one. Lopez made four saves and Drayer wasn’t forced to make one.
