READFIELD — After more than 34 minutes of keeping one of the most explosive offenses in the state off the scoreboard, Hall-Dale’s bend-but-don’t-break defense finally shattered under the booming right foot of Maranacook’s Matt DuBois.
DuBois’ goal with 5:23 left was all top-seeded Maranacook needed at least on the scoreboard, to return to the Class C title game with a 1-0 win over No. 3 Hall-Dale.
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Maranacook, which beat Hall-Dale in last year’s regional final by the same score, will try to defend its state title at 3 p.m. Saturday at Deering High School against the winner of Thursday’s Eastern C regional between Central and Orono.
DuBois took a pass from Zack Godbout just above the 18, pivoted and fired a laser similar to his goal in the semifinals against Waynflete to finally solve Hall-Dale goalkeeper Brian Allen (17 saves), who was outstanding in net all night
“I saw the ball coming to me. I knew I had a defender on my back that I had to shake off, so I just let the ball go through my legs and then I took the shot,” said DuBois, who returned to Maranacook this year after moving away for a year.
“They were a lot better than I expected, to be honest with you,” Maranacook coach Don Beckwith said of Hall-Dale. “They had a really good scheme and they stayed right with it. They were really well-coached. (Allen) is a very good goalie.”
Maranacook (19-0-0) outshot Hall-Dale 29-8 but didn’t have nearly as many quality chances as those lopsided numbers might indicate against Hall-Dale’s packed-in defense.
“I thought we played real well. Defensively we kept to our scheme. They just broke us down a little bit at the end,” Hall-Dale coach Andy Haskell said. “They had a few chances but it wasn’t as overpowering as I thought it would be. I thought we were in the game the whole way.”
The Black Bears, meanwhile, contained Hall-Dale (15-2) senior Nat Crocker, marking him with junior defender Jason Brooks most of the game and sometimes having a second defender shadow him.
“I didn’t find out until 5 o’clock that I was going to be on him, so I had no idea,” Brooks said. “He’s a really good player, so I just tried to keep him in front of me. He’s a good passer, good shooter. I didn’t want to let him get away at all.”
“When you’re playing on these 65-yard wide fields, there’s a lot of tight space. The field’s wet. It’s tough footing. It’s just a different game. But they did a pretty good job marking him out,” Haskell said.
The Black Bears’ physical style seemed to backfire early in the second half when Kodey Solmitz and Bailey Clark drew yellow cards 13 seconds apart.
“You want to play physical, but not over the top where it’s stupid,” Brooks said. “You just want to play smart and not get carried away.”
“We really didn’t have a lot of discipline today, not much composure,” Beckwith said. “For a team that’s been there before, we should be better than that. Frankly, we probably should have gotten a couple of (cards) before that.”
Maranacook still kept the pressure on as Brooks had a good look from 20 yards sail over the crossbar, Allen stopped a Mohlar direct kick and Max McQuillen and Allen arrived on a pass into the box at the same time, with the resulting deflection knifing outside the left post.
With under 10 minutes left, Allen robbed Brooks from about six yards out to preserve the tie.
Allen withstood 12 shots on goal in the first half, most from 20 to 30 yards, but did have to make on leaping deflection of an over-the-top bid from 20 yards out that then bounced off the face of crossbar.
“He’s been superb in goal all year and the guys in the back did a real good job,” Haskell said.
The volume of Maranacook’s shots went down in the second half, but the quality did improve. The Black Bears finally found the right one to beat the Bulldogs.
“This means a lot,” DuBois said. “Going back to my sophomore year, we lost here on penalty kicks to Falmouth (in the B West semifinals) and I’ve been trying to redeem myself since then. This is the way to do it.”
Randy Whitehouse — 621-5638
rwhitehouse@mainetoday.com
Twitter: @RAWmaterial33
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