BATH — Camryn Hurley got to celebrate her 16th birthday a little early Wednesday at McMann Field.

Hurley, a sophomore on the Richmond girls soccer team whose birthday is Thursday, scored two goals and assisted on three more in the first half alone to power the Bobcats past Searsport in the Western Maine Class D finals.

Sophomore Meranda Martin had a big game for the Bobcats as well with three goals and two assists, while junior Kelsea Anair also had a hat trick.

“There’s a core group that has to step up and shoulder the load,” Richmond coach Troy Kendrick said of the trio of Martin, Anair and Hurley. “That group came to play today, that’s for sure.”

Richmond will now face Eastern Class D champ Ashland for the Gold Ball on Saturday. The Bobcats lost in the state title game last season after winning the Class D championship the three years prior.

“We were all really nervous, especially from our last game when it was only 1-0 (in a win over Rangeley),” Hurley said. “We all got our heads in it this time.”

Richmond struggled against the Lakers because of a defensive alignment from Rangeley and its goalkeeper, Taylor Esty. Standing at around 6-feet tall, Esty took away the Bobcats ability to shoot from distance.

“The girls weren’t really pleased with how we played the other day,” Kendrick said. “We knew we had to play better.

“The last couple practices have been very focused. The kids have been doing more coaching than I have.”

Facing a much shorter goalie in Searsport’s Brooklynn Alberts, however, Richmond managed to take advantage of that difference early.

It took just 5 minutes, 50 seconds for the Bobcats to break through, as Hurley blasted a shot from just outside the 18-yard line into the back of the net for the early lead.

“My first goal was right over her head,” Hurley said. “If that was Taylor Esty than it wouldn’t have been there.”

From there, however, Searsport found its footing and had a few promising chances that never quite materialized into a great shot on net.

Then with the game clock approaching 10 minutes remaining in the opening half Richmond cracked the contest wide open.

First Hurley broke free down the right sideline and crossed the ball to around the 12-yard mark, where Anair was waiting to tuck the ball just inside the left post.

It only took 50 seconds for the two to hook up again, this time on a through ball that left Anair one-on-one with the Searsport goalkeeper.

At the 5:08 mark Hurley got back in on the scoring, running down a through ball from Martin to make it 4-0 after finishing her one-on-one opportunity.

Less than two minute later it was the same combination, just different order as Hurley set up Martin to turn what was a close game just seven minutes earlier into 5-0 runaway advantage for Richmond at halftime.

Anair and Martin pushed the lead to 7-0 within the first 12 minutes of the second half before Alberts — now playing forward — scored for Searsport to prevent the shutout. Martin added her third score with 90 seconds remaining to round out the game’s scoring.

Evan Crawley—621-5640

ecrawley@mainetoday.com

Twitter: @Evan_Crawley

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