FALMOUTH — Neither coach seemed particularly happy after Friday’s season opener between the Falmouth and Greely girls’ soccer teams.

Greely Coach Josh Muscadin’s team didn’t play up to his standards until Riley Soule’s overtime goal clinched a 3-2 victory. And Falmouth Coach Andrew Pelletier thought the game should never have gone into overtime after a controversial call negated a second-half goal for the Yachtsmen.

“It is what it is,” a restrained Pelletier said. “The referees obviously didn’t see it go into the net.”

With the score 1-1 less than two minutes into the second half, Falmouth midfielder Lucy Mahoney converted an Amelia Waite cross into a goal. The ball bounced off a sandbag holding down the back of the net and rolled out. But to the referees, it appeared to hit the goalpost.

“The ref wasn’t in position to see it was a goal,” said Waite. “It was definitely a surprise and we were definitely discouraged.”

Even Muscadin said a goal should have been credited to Falmouth, though he was naturally more forgiving of the officials.

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“They’re human beings,” Muscadin said. “I think it did go in but I call it karma. Last year we scored the same thing here and they said no goal.”

The Rangers won the Class B state championship last season, outscoring opponents 20-2 in the playoffs. But after graduating eight starters, Muscadin said his squad is young.

“To tell you the truth, I don’t think we did that well,” Muscadin said of Friday’s game. “It was a learning process. My kids were a little timid. There were nerves involved, and we panicked.”

But Muscadin was pleased when his team “finally decided to move the ball,” resulting in the winning goal.

The game was back and forth until the end.

After 30 scoreless minutes, Greely midfielder Ellie Schad scored from freshman Sawyer Dusch.

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Falmouth tied the game four minutes later when Waite capitalized on a turnover and, with a left-footed shot, tucked the ball into the top right corner of the goal.

Ten minutes into the second half, Falmouth midfielder Lauren Wendland caught Greely defenders too far up the field. Mahoney fed Wendland a through ball down the middle and Wendland scored for the 2-1 lead.

“It should have been 3-1,” Pelletier said.

Courtney Sullivan of Greely scored two minutes later to take the game to overtime, where Soule won it.

“It’s always tight,” Pelletier said of the Greely-Falmouth matchup.

“We defended incredibly well. We created a lot of chances. We just didn’t finish a few.”

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Pelletier said his team is also contending with injuries and only has 14 players in the rotation.

“So the girls were a little gassed,” Pelletier said. “We’ll be all right once we get healthy.”

As for the Rangers, Muscadin said it’s going to be “a long season.

“Yeah, we got some gifts,” Muscadin said of the game. “But if we put more of those away, I wouldn’t have to worry about gifts.”


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