The Penobscot Valley High School girls soccer team was the only team from the North to claim a state championship on Saturday as the Howlers edged St. Dom’s of Auburn 1-0 in the State Class D final at Messalonskee High School in Oakland.
Senior striker Brooke Champion scored the game’s only goal with 6:04 left in the first half.
Yarmouth High School won its second straight Class B title with a 2-0 victory over Ellsworth, the alma mater of Yarmouth head coach Andy Higgins.
Waynflete of Portland beat Fort Kent in the second round of penalty kicks to claim the C crown and Scarborough defended its Class A crown with two late second-half goals to beat Bangor 2-0.
The A and D games were at Messalonskee while the B and C finals were at Mt. Ararat High School in Topsham.
Penobscot Valley completed an 18-0 season and posted its 12th shutout. It was the Howlers’ first state title since they won their third Class B title in a four-year span in 1986.
The Howlers, who scored two goals in the final 5:11 to rally past Wisdom High of St. Agatha 2-1 in the D North final, produced the game-winner off a pretty pass from Ellie Austin to Champion.
Austin, who set up the tying goal and scored the game-winner against Wisdom, dribbled into the penalty area and around St. Dom’s goalkeeper Anna Theriault before sliding the ball across to Champion, who guided it into the empty net with her left foot.
PVHS had lost to North Yarmouth Academy 8-0 in last year’s D final and had also lost to NYA in the 2019 title game.
Theriault finished with 11 saves for St. Dom’s, which wound up 12-4-1.
In the C game, Liza Lawson scored the decisive goal in the second series of penalty kicks after each team had converted three in the first set of PKs.
In the second series, Paige Alexander, Morgan Earles and goalkeeper Ayla Stutzman scored for Waynflete as the Flyers built a 3-1 lead before Lawson clinched it.
Stutzman also made a save in the second session.
Fort Kent’s Mia Voisine made nine saves in regulation and the two overtimes to help force the penalty kick shootouts.
Lucy Hart, Naomi Rice and Grace Alexander had converted in the first session of penalty kicks for Waynflete while Fort Kent’s Reese Doucette, Maddie Martin and Julia Cyr scored.
Doucette had scored the goal in the 1-0 win over defending state C champ Bucksport in the C North title game.
Waynflete’s title was its first since 2013. It had beaten Fort Kent 3-2 in double overtime in the 2012 state championship game.
Fort Kent was seeking its first title since 2018.
In the B game, Brooke Boone’s first half goal and Aine Powers’ second-half tally supplied the Clippers with their state title.
Boone fired into the far corner after a run down the right flank and Powers converted after making a dash down the left wing.
Yarmouth capped a 16-1-1 season in which it went 16-0-1 after a season-opening 1-0 double overtime loss to Greely High of Cumberland Center.
Ellsworth, which dethroned three-time B North champ Hermon 3-2 in the B North final, wound up 14-3-1 while making its first appearance in a state final since 1999.
Goalkeeper Jayden Sullivan made 14 saves in a superlative performance for the Eagles.
