FARMINGDALE — Tatum Hancock had a feeling one of her team’s biggest games of the season might unfold this way.

A year ago, the Hall-Dale and Maranacook girls soccer teams met in the Mountain Valley Conference championship game; Wednesday, they entered a showdown at Melvin H. Simmons Complex sporting unbeaten records. Their top pedigrees showed as the Bulldogs and Black Bears played to a 1-1 draw.

“(I was expecting) pretty much an evenly played game, and that’s what we got,” said Hancock, Hall-Dale’s first-year head coach. “We knew from the past that they’re a team we play pretty evenly with, and we prepared for that. We knew it would be a battle and a back-and-forth game.”

Maria Benoit scored for Hall-Dale midway through the first half before Evelyn Stevenson leveled the score for Maranacook with just 1:30 to play in the opening period. The two teams then played an evenly matched second half before two scoreless overtime periods produced a stalemate.

Maranacook put pressure on Hall-Dale (6-0-2) early, forcing Sierra Gibbons into a save four minutes in and rattling the post 40 seconds later. The Bulldogs, though, would settle into the game, and with 19:37 left in the first half, Benoit belted a free kick over the wall and into the net to give the home team a 1-0 lead.

“That was a great free kick,” Hancock said. “I knew she could step up for us and do it; I’ve seen her do it in practices. I’m glad she connected in this game because it set the tempo for us and pushed us harder to work after kind of a shaky few opening minutes.” 

Maranacook (6-0-2) wasn’t fazed by Hall-Dale’s opener and continued to push forward, nearly scoring 40 seconds later. With 1:30 left in the half, the visitors’ pressure finally paid off as Stevenson scored from close range on an assist from Phoebe Bell to tie the game at a goal apiece.

“I thought we showed some really good toughness in those last few minutes of that first half to keep pushing and get a goal,” said Maranacook head coach Travis Magnusson. “I think that really gave us some momentum and energy heading into halftime, which we definitely needed.”

The second half was evenly matched with Maranacook’s Devyn Eliasen coming up with a save with 28 minutes to go and two more with just under four to keep the game level. Gibbons then made a key stop with 3:30 to play in the second overtime as the teams settled for a draw.

Magnusson lamented his team’s inability to finish some of its chances, normally one of Maranacook’s strengths. Yet he attributed some of that to Hall-Dale’s solid defense, which conceded a goal for just the fourth time in eight games this season.

“We liked some of the opportunities we got tonight; we got the ball wide pretty well, and we had some good crosses,” Magnusson said. “We’ve got to work a little bit more on our finishing, but Hall-Dale’s defense played well, and I thought our defense played well, too.”