CUMBERLAND — Second-seeded Greely cashed in late on one of its few scoring chances Saturday to pull out a 1-0 victory against third-ranked York in a Western Class B boys’ soccer semifinal.

Jacob Nason got his foot onto a rebound following a corner kick to score the game’s lone goal with 3:29 remaining, sending the Rangers into Wednesday’s regional final.

Greely (12-2-2) will play on the road against top-ranked Yarmouth (13-0-3), which beat Cape Elizabeth 5-0 in the other semifinal.

“Obviously the games are going to get a little bit tougher,” Greely Coach Mike Andreasen said. “If the game is any tougher than York, I don’t want any part of it.”

It was the third game of the season between the two teams. On Sept. 30, Greely rolled to 3-0 victory against the Wildcats at York. On Oct. 8, the teams played to a scoreless tie at Cumberland.

“We were lucky,” Andreasen said. “We were fortunate.

“I guess in the playoffs it’s better to be lucky than good. It’s better than playing well and losing.”

Neither team could do much offensively in the back-and-forth game.

“We didn’t have a lot of chances tonight,” Andreasen said “I can’t remember a game we’ve had here this year where we’ve had as few chances.

“We had stuff on set pieces on corner kicks, but they didn’t give us a chance to get out in transition. They put nine guys back behind the ball and they defended.”

Nason’s goal came at the end of a string of three consecutive corner kicks.

Adam Legg, who had 11 saves, was able to get his hand on the ball for a moment, but squirted it outside the goalie box to the right side of the net, and Nason was there to ground it into the goal.

“It was a good game,” York Coach Mike Masi said. “It was back and forth, and they had some sustained pressure at the end.

“They had a bunch of (corner kicks) in a row and eventually one of those is going to pay off and it did.”

The Rangers held a 24-15 edge in shots, but it seemed neither team could get an uncontested shot off from inside the penalty area until Nason connected for his goal.

“I told Mike (Masi) after the game, ‘We didn’t look good and I think it was you guys doing it to us,’ ” Andreasen said. “That was anybody’s game.”

The Wildcats finished the season at 5-5-6.

“There was a spell in the second half where I was thinking, ‘oh man, we’re going to get them,’ ” Masi said.

“We definitely looked like the more likely team to score for a bit, and then they got sustained pressure for a while and got the eventual goal.”

Paul Betit can be contacted at 791-6424 or at: pbetit@pressherald.comTwitter: PaulBetitPPH

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