WATERVILLE — Before the start of Friday’s Eastern Maine Class B girls soccer semifinal, Waterville Senior High School coach Ian Wilson stressed the importance of a fast start.
Wilson’s words sunk in. The top-seeded Purple Panthers scored a pair of goals in the game’s first five minutes, and took a 4-1 win over No. 5 Camden Hills.
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“I can’t complain about that. We’ll take that start,” Wilson said.
Waterville (16-0-0) will host the winner of Saturday’s game between No. 3 Hermon and No. 2 Presque Isle in the regional championship game at 2 p.m., Wednesday at Webber Field. Camden Hills ends the season at 12-4-1.
“We’ve had a couple slow starts this year. A lot of slow starts, but I think we can put our opponents away if we start hard and show them we’re here to play and we’re going to dominate this game,” Waterville senior co-captain Sarah Shoulta said. “That’s what a team who wants to win states plays like.”
It was Shoulta who started Waterville’s first scoring play, with her corner kick in the first minute. Shoulta found Pilar Elias, whose low shot found the left corner of the net, giving the Panthers a 1-0 lead 30 seconds into the game.
“I saw Pilar and Lydia (Roy), so I decided to serve the ball right to the general area they are, and they put it right in,” Shoulta said.
Added Wilson: “I think we probably caught Camden a little by surprise with our short corner play, which we practiced a lot this year. It worked for us.”
Roy scored minutes later, with 35:36 left in the half, heading a pass from Shoulta past Windjammers goalie Rachel Pease.
With 3:07 left in the first half, Shoulta scored to push Waterville’s lead to 3-0.
Although the Panthers had a fast start, Wilson felt the team didn’t maintain that level of play throughout the game.
“I think we started to get a little anxious as the game went along. We’ve got a better game in us. We kept sort of being anxious to push the ball ahead and score, and we just weren’t being patient,” Wilson said. “We’re going to have to be a little more patient with the ball.”
Elias scored her second goal of the game with 29:28 left in the second half to extend Waterville’s lead to 4-0. Eleven seconds later, the Windjammers scored their only goal, off the foot of Charlotte Messer.
“Classic letdown. You score a goal, you’re kind of busy celebrating, and they came right back on us. A good lesson to have to learn. Hopefully, you don’t learn that lesson at a crucial moment,” Wilson said.
Travis Lazarczyk — 861-9242
Twitter: @TLazarczykMTM
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