BANGOR, Maine — The top-seeded Bangor High School girls soccer team survived a major scare from the Brewer High Witches on Tuesday night.
The eighth-seeded Witches, who needed a three-game winning streak at the end of the season to get into the Class A North playoffs and lost twice to Bangor by an aggregate score of 11-1, frustrated the Rams with an impressive defensive showing.
But Rams junior striker Teagan Atherley snapped a 1-1 tie with her team-high 21st goal of the season 4:14 into the second half and Bangor came away with a hard-fought 2-1 victory at Cameron Stadium.
Bangor, now 14-1, will entertain fourth-seed Mt. Ararat of Topsham, 11-3-1, in Saturday’s 11 a.m. semifinal at Cameron Stadium. Bangor beat Mt. Ararat 2-0 on Sept. 19 in Bangor.
Brewer, which doesn’t have a senior, wound up 3-10-2.
Senior midfielder Ani Roberts staked Bangor to an early lead but junior forward Lauren Vanidestine equalized for Brewer late in the first half.
Atherley’s game-winner came off a nifty give-and-go with sophomore striker Clara Oldenburg, who picked up her team-leading 10th assist.
“One of the things we talked about at halftime was playing through the middle and playing quickly,” said Atherley. “I got the ball to Clara, and she said she heard my voice so she played it to me, and I just hit it into the goal.”
Atherley neatly tucked her 10-yard shot into the corner to the right of Brewer sophomore goalie Gabby Chasse, who had no chance.
The Witches did a terrific job defensively in the first half, closing off passing lanes, clogging the middle of the field and making it difficult for the Rams to penetrate the penalty area.
As a result, Bangor wound up settling for long-range shots that were handled easily by Chasse or missed the net.
Bangor opened the scoring just 6:36 into the game when Roberts curled a cross from the left side that evaded a bunch of bodies and nestled inside the far post.
The speedy Vanidestine tied it when she pounced on a Bangor turnover, sprinted toward goal and drilled a perfectly-placed shot from the top of the penalty area past the right side of the diving Eva Coombs.
The Rams looked more like their dominant selves in the second half, keeping the Witches pinned in their own end and doing a much better job in the attacking third. Bangor used the flanks more and was able to create time and space in the Brewer penalty area against the hard-working Witches.
The Witches did not have a shot attempt in the second half while Bangor had 19 shots to finish the game with a 32-4 edge over the 80 minutes
Chasse made seven saves in the second half, including a couple of gems off Olivia Scott and Lily Chandler, to keep her team within striking distance.
She finished with 10 saves while Coombs had one.
“We definitely struggled in the first half. We started to get frantic. But we collected ourselves and played much better in the second half,” said Atherley. “We started connecting.”
“Our shape was off in the first half,” said Bangor senior center back Mimi Quinn. “We had a hard time bringing our energy up. But Coach’s (Jay Kemble) halftime talk really helped us. We focused on what we needed to work on.
“We worked on moving their defense around. They were very compact in the middle so we spread them out and that helped us get more shots off,” Quinn added.
Brewer junior midfielder Devin Horr said the Witches were “really pumped up for this game.
“We were ready to pressure them. We weren’t going to let them get easy shots. If we were going to lose, we weren’t going down without a fight,” Horr said.
Brewer coach Phil Turmelle said they had a game plan and the players “worked hard at it.
“But Bangor took away the stuff we wanted to do and we came up a little short. Bangor picked up the pressure in the second half. But our players started playing the ball to feet and began trusting each other again. This team took great steps this last month,” said Turmelle.
Bangor head coach Kemble said Brewer played a “complete game. They were organized, they stepped to balls and did some really good things. We cleaned up some things at halftime. We made some adjustments and took back control of the middle. You have to win close games in the playoffs.”
