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September 8, 2018 · 5:51 pm

Freeport wears down Lake Region 9-0 in Class B soccer

Will Winter face-to-face with Laker goalie CJ Ferguson

Jesse Bennell with open space

(Naples ME) “Freeport is a great team,” said Lake Region coach Ryan Harlow after watching his team defeated 9-0 by the Falcons on Saturday morning.

Who could argue? The visitors put on a passing clinic on all parts of the field.

Many of the Falcons’ goals were at the end of unselfish setups. Eight different players scored.

“It’s their touches,” added Coach Harlow. “As soon as they touch the ball they know where they’re going. They are two players ahead on where the ball is going to go.”

Logan Parsons (9) and Eriksen Shea (3)

Credit the Lakers for hanging in. Coming off a 2-12 2017 season and a tough 2-1 loss Thursday to Poland, the home team trailed just 2-0 after thirty minutes of the first half. Unfortunately for the Lakers (1-2), in those final ten minutes Freeport cashed four times.

With a six-goal cushion the Falcons (2-1) could play the second half differently.

“We wanted to give everyone minutes,” explained FHS coach Bob Strong. “I was able to put players in different positions to see how they’d do. Some who were usually in the back got to play in the front.”

No matter where the Falcons were positioned their passing was terrific. “We moved the ball around well,” added Coach Strong. “We want to limit our touches and play quick.”

Junior Will Winter paced the Falcons with two goals and two assists.

Jake Dumont (penalty kick), Eriksen Shea, Cam Strong, Griffin Johnson, Gabe Wagner, Jesse Bennell, and Liam Grogan had goals.

CJ Ferguson catches a high Freeport shot

The busiest person in Naples from 10AM-11:30AM? Easily it was Lakers goalie CJ Ferguson. The LR goalie faced 33 shots and few were slow rollers.

The Falcons did score one PK but, with their passing in the box, several times teammates were set up for PK-type scoring chances.

Defender Caleb Arsenault had an assist for Freeport. “We played well in the back,” he told me afterwards. “We got the ball to midfield and the offense connected on passes.” Caleb is looking to attend Unity next year. “I would try to walk on to their soccer team.”

Nice cool weather with morning sun. Good traveling crowd from Freeport.

Caleb Arsenault

Coach Harlow: “Our defense is young. We’re trying to build it. Our sophomore class is very good. We hope to compete with teams like Freeport in the future. We just had a youth clinic earlier this morning for 150 kids so there is an interest in soccer.”

Coach Strong: “We have some horses this year, but we have to execute. We play Yarmouth (defending Class B champs) on Tuesday. That will be a test for us. No one expects us to win (FHS was 9-7 last year) and that’s the position we like to be in right now.”

The scoreboard on the lower field showed the time but not the score.

Covering program-less games is always a challenge. To accurately identify pictures, you must have names and numbers. Today I got some help but as I looked through my pictures I found numbers from both teams that aren’t on the lists I left with. How helpful it would be if each coach brought several up-to-date rosters with numbers, names, and graduating class to each game.

(All the pictures above and below should enlarge if you click on them.)

Gabe Wagner

Griffin Johnson (13)

Jack (Tom Kolofsky) and The Baker (Matt Mayo)

Ethan Prescott and Jason Harlow

Jake Dumond lines up a shot

Jesse Bennell and Jonas Edwards

Jesse Bennell shoots as Matt Mayo defends

Jesse Bennell

Owen Patrick

Will Winter (2 goals) break through

Action aplenty in front of the LR goal on a corner kick

Bill Antoine fires

Cam Strong (20) finishes

Two Tristen Chaine second-half goals spark Lake Region’s 4-2 win over Poland

Tristen Chaine (#2 in white uniform) finds the far right side of the Poland net.

The Knights celebrate their first goal in five games.

(Naples ME) I love these matchups!

Put two hardworking teams together, throw out the records and catch the excitement.

And there was plenty of excitement today as visiting Poland fell to Lake Region, 4-2, on a chilly Saturday morning/afternoon of Class B South boys’ soccer.

Lake Region senior Tristen Chaine was the difference maker in the final outcome with two second half tallies.

The Knights controlled play for much of the first half but opportunistic LR jumped in front, 2-0, on rebound scores by junior Jacob Arey.

Paul Vigna (11) defended by Andrew Frechette moves in on outcoming Poland goalie Matt Thebarge

But Poland, which hadn’t registered a goal in four games, got an answer as sophomore Cooper Keene put in his own rebound with 8:57 left in the first half.

The Knights carried that 2-1 deficit to halftime and the closeness of the score was unfamiliar ground for the visitors. In a season of frequent bulging first-half deficits, here was a game they had a solid chance to win.

Poland tied the score on a lovely corner kick/header conversion with 31:54 remaining. We now had ourselves a ballgame!

I think the chilly weather really helped both teams by lessening the fatigue that the recent high heat brought. And I think the fact that both teams were in a winnable position in the second half was also an inspiration. Take your pick of the reasons. We saw minutes full of back-and-forth runs with a significant number of near misses and goalie stops as the game continued tied.

Tristen Chaine found crucial open space in the second half

But then Tristen Chaine took over. The senior showed the knack of beating defenders off the dribble during most of the game. Twice, with the game tied in the second half, those moves into space allowed him to launch left-footed rockets from the left. One at 14:00 and another at 9:02. Knights goalie Matt Thebarge had no chance on either shot as both were hard-hit and both found the upper right corner of the Poland net.

Those goals turned out to be the difference in the final 4-2 outcome.

Four minutes after the first Tristen goal, the Lakers were awarded a penalty kick when Poland captain Sam Walker took down Giovani Lopez in the penalty area. Giovani took the PK but his low shot was blocked by Matt Thebarge.

I thought, at the time, that Matt’s big save might spark a Knights’ counterattack and a possible tying goal but instead within a minute Tristen tallied his second score to increase Poland’s deficit to two.

Jacob Arey (8) converted two rebounds into goals.

Jacob Arey’s two first-half goals were almost identical. He was on the right side as first Paul Vigna, and later Jason Harlow, had one-on-one’s versus Poland GK Matt Thebarge. Matt made two gutsy blocks but both produced rebounds that went directly to Jacob with open nets to shoot at. Jacob didn’t miss on either opportunity.

Noah Breton’s goal was a beauty. Captain Sam Walker’s corner kick was head high and Noah’s was the head that connected with it. LR goalie CJ Ferguson had the middle of the net covered but Noah’s header went into the left corner. Nice play.

There were no cautions and very little contact.

I was impressed with the Vigna brothers (Paul/Peter). Peter had several key defensive plays to stymy Poland surges.

There were a few raindrops in the first half. A few more and I might have gone to my car and if I had I would have missed a very good game.

Poland (0-9) hosted Lake Region (2-8) on September 12^th and lost 3-1. LR took a 3-0 halftime lead and held off the Knights in the second half. This time around the Knights were in a tie game until the final fifteen minutes.

The Lakers had scored only two goals in their previous six games making today’s four-goal effort a welcome change.

Matt Thebarge blocked Giovani Lopez’s PK

Last time I saw the Lakers’ Matt Mayo in action was during this summer’s, “Wizard of Oz.” Terrific show.

I did the Fryeburg Academy/Leavitt football game at FA last Saturday. That day I was looking for shade (temps in the high 80’s). Today was a bracing 35 degrees cooler. I had four layers on!

(All of the pictures above and below will enlarge considerably if you click on them.)