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SKOWHEGAN — Nick Wallace promised the Skowhegan girls soccer team Al’s Pizza if it scored on a header this season. With 12 minutes, 41 seconds left in the first half Tuesday, Grace Ireland thought she’d earned the meal.

Positioned perfectly as a corner kick deflected off the crossbar, the Skowhegan junior guided the ball over the line off the side of her face. It wasn’t, though, what Skowhegan’s first-year athletic director had in mind.

“That doesn’t count,” Wallace said, pointing out that the goal didn’t truly come from Ireland’s noggin. He assured the team, though, that there will be plenty more opportunities for a true header this season.

That’s not a hard assurance to make with the way Skowhegan is playing. At 8-0, the River Hawks are in the midst of a historic campaign, securing their first winning season since 2002 with a 6-0 victory over Messalonskee.

Historically, girls soccer at Skowhegan has not been among the school’s most successful programs. After a spell of decent play at the turn of the century, the River Hawks entered the 2025 season having won four games or fewer every year since 2003, with the exception of 2018.

This season, then, has been a complete 180. Clinical in front of the goal and workmanlike on defense, Skowhegan has outscored its opponents 34-2, vaulting to the No. 2 spot in the Class B North Heal point standings.

“It feels really good to know that we’re changing things for Skowhegan soccer,” said sophomore Mae Dubois, who scored two goals in Tuesday’s win. “We’ve kind of grown up playing together, so now that we’re older, it’s all coming together.”

Indeed, between travel and school soccer, Skowhegan coach Mike Herrick has been coaching this group of players since they were young. The bulk are sophomores, including the team’s top-five scorers: Lydia Herrick (11 goals), Dubois (eight goals), Madi Flannery (four), Vivian Hart (four) and Charlotte Libby (two).

The jump from freshman to sophomore year, Herrick said, has been critical to Skowhegan’s success. The River Hawks made some progress last year with a 4-9-2 season, and another year of growth has helped fuel their rise.

“I had a moment coaching them over the summer where I was like, ‘Oh, my gosh,’ because you could just see that huge growth from last year,” Mike Herrick said. “You’ve really been able to see it in their confidence; they went from, ‘Maybe I can do this,’ to, ‘OK, we’ve got this; let’s go.’”

Depth has played a huge part. During the River Hawks’ down years, which included winless seasons from 2009-11 and again in 2015, they dealt with low roster numbers as more girls opted to play field hockey during Skowhegan’s dynasty. This year, though, the River Hawks have 39 players.

“We’ve just been able to plug in girls at different positions, and they’ve all been outstanding,” said Herrick, whose team also got goals from Hart, Herrick and McKaela McLaughlin on Tuesday. “You look at today, Grace was our 10th goal scorer this season. That’s pretty exciting.”

After years in Class A North, Skowhegan opted down to Class B North this fall. Still, the two Class A foes the River Hawks played thus far this year (Messalonskee and Mt. Blue) were teams they lost to a year ago. (Under its current enrollment of 634, Skowhegan would be a Class B team anyway.)

Getting that win over an Eagles team that was one of the toughest the River Hawks have played to date is a further confidence-builder. Skowhegan used its speed to outmaneuver Messalonskee en route to four first-half goals.

“We put through balls between the defenders, and we have speed on our team, so (we took advantage),” Lydia Herrick said. “We were really able to talk and communicate and figure out our passing.”

Skowhegan’s best season was a 13-2-1 mark in 1987.

Although the River Hawks are taking games one at a time, they’re also aware of that history. Coach Herrick informed the team after Saturday’s win at Maine Central Institute that it marked the program’s first seven-win season since 2000, and from here, every win just feels like something bigger.

“Heck yeah, we think about it,” Dubois said. “It definitely is (in the back our minds).”