The Waterville boys soccer team spent the weekend hiking and camping at Sugarloaf on a team-bonding trip. The Panthers hope to carry that bond into the first-round of the Eastern A tournament, which begins Saturday.

Waterville was 6-4-3 and ranked seventh in the Eastern A Heal points prior to Tuesday’s action. The Panthers are one of four local teams, along with No. 8 Messalonskee (7-4-2), No. 9 Erskine (6-3-4) and No. 10 Lawrence (3-7-3) locked into the final four playoff spots, pending results of the regular-season finales. Those four teams will likely play in preliminary games this weekend.

“I think we need to take it one game at a time,” Waterville coach Kerry Serdjenian said. “There is a lot of parity in the league this year, so each game will be tough.”

All four schools play in the Kennebec Valley Athletic Conference’s Class A division and had played to ties in 23 percent of their games prior to Tuesday’s action.

“The team that is going to come out of the preliminary games will be the one that shows up to play,” Serdjenian said. “Our team is ready, we have talked a lot about our situation and how far our seniors have come since they were freshmen when we had a difficult season.”

After suffering back-to-back one-goal losses to Hampden and Bangor, teams above them in the standings, Waterville recoved with a 4-3 win over Lawrence last week.

“I feel really good about our chances,” Serdjenian said. “This is definitely a group that want to win for each other, it’s all about team chemistry.”

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The Mt. View boys are poised to play the underdog role in the Eastern B tournament. The Mustangs, a talented and big team, have won nine games this season, but are in the No. 9 spot entering the final game of the regular season.

Mt. View (9-3-1) has played the top teams tough, but has not been able to pick up a key victory.

“We have to play flawlessly on defense,” Mt. View coach Chris Hink said. “We haven’t had many great goals scored on us, most of them have come on missed traps, missed marks and bad balls.

“We played a fantastic game against Maranacook (12-0-1). it was back and forth. We scored then let up and gave up a goal a minute later. That has happened to us several times this season.”

While defense has been an issue for the Mustangs, their offense has been impressive. Mt. View has not been shut out this season and has scored 42 goals.

“I wouldn’t want to be another team play us,” Hink said. “I don’t care where we end up, we need to play 80 minutes of soccer. The East is wide open and anyone can win it.”

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The Mt. Abram girls struggled offensively this season until the final game of the regular season. Mt. Abram beat Boothbay 5-0 on Monday. Goalie Allie Lopez came out of the net in the second half and scored three goals, while sweper Lyndsay Beane moved up to forward and also scored.

The Roadrunners (8-5-1) have been outstanding offensively, allowing just eight goals in 14 games. Mt. Abram has played in seven 1-0 games this season, winning three of them. Overall, the Roadrunners have outscored their opponents 21-8.

“We’ve been solid on defense and had to rely on that,” Mt. Abram coach Marc Keller said. “We feel we can play with anyone.”

The Roadrunners tied No. 1 Lisbon, 1-1 and lost to No. 2 St. Dom’s 1-0 and No. 3 Monmouth 1-0.

“Our kids really know they can play with anyone in the Mountain Valley Conference,” Keller said. “We have a serious shot at winning the whole thing.”

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