WINSLOW — The Winslow girls soccer team settled into their new digs quite nicely Saturday morning.

Ousted from Kennebec Savings Bank Field in favor of better conditions on the high school’s own campus, the No. 3 Black Raiders started quickly and finished strong in a thorough 5-1 thumping of No. 14 Foxcroft in a Class B North preliminary-round game. Winslow (14-1-0) will host a regional quarterfinal Wednesday in the very same location, Winslow athletic director Jim Bourgoin confirmed.

“We were nervous coming in. We’re a little bit superstitious,” Winslow senior captain Sara Doughty said. “It’s very different. KSB is actually a really big field and playing out here it’s a little bit shorter, but it’s wider. It’s not bad. It’s a little bumpier, but it’s new for all of us.”

Sophomore Carly Warn produced a hat trick in the win over the Ponies, scoring twice early in the second half to polish it off. Doughty also scored and assisted on a Warn goal, and junior Kristen Rancourt added a goal of her own.

It was such a complete effort from the Black Raiders that they held Foxcroft (7-8-0) without a shot attempt in the first half — despite the Ponies attacking with a stiff breeze at their backs — and just one shot for the entire match. That shot, less than nine minutes from the finish, produced Kamryn Comeau’s goal.

“We had a lot of space in the midfield, which really helped us,” Warn said. “We kept our intensity up again, too, which always helps.”

Warn may have threatened to grab the headlines with her goals, but it was Doughty serving as the catalyst for Winslow throughout. Doughty, who missed four games due to a knee injury, returned for the final two games of the regular season.

On Saturday, she appeared to have knocked off any rust from her game.

“It was really hard to be out,” Doughty said. “It’s been hard to not play like myself, but each game it’s gotten a little bit easier. I felt really good today. I felt like I was on my game. I told myself all along I was going to save it for playoffs.”

“We’re glad to have her back, obviously,” Winslow coach Steve Bodge said. “She missed three or four games, and we survived without her. Now we’ve got our leader back, so we’re pretty happy with that.”

Not surprisingly, then, it was Doughty who scored just five minutes in for a 1-0 Winslow lead. Warn’s free kick from more than 30 yards was held up in the wind, and when Foxcroft goalkeeper Kailee Ward couldn’t handle the service, it dropped to Doughty for the easy finish.

Warn made it 2-0 five minutes later with a turn and finish from the top of the 18-yard box, and the Raiders went into halftime with a 3-0 lead after Rancourt corralled Katie Doughty’s corner kick for her goal.

Warn made it a 5-0 game with goals in the 45th and 56th minutes.

Winslow looked as though it had played the entire season on the campus’ middle school field hockey field, despite having not even practiced on the surface until Friday afternoon.

“I liked the fact that we used the whole thing,” Bodge said. “I liked that when we walked on the field, (Foxcroft) was admiring how wide it is, and we used a lot of that — especially in the first half against the wind. It basically attributed to all of our goals, using that width of the field and getting it to the middle.”

Travis Barrett — 621-5621

tbarrett@centralmaine.com

Twitter: @TBarrettGWC

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