The 2005 season was a long one for the Gorham girls lacrosse team. The Rams didn’t win a game during their inaugural campaign and team morale took a hit as a result.

What a difference a year makes.

The Rams rallied to beat South Portland, 6-4, Saturday morning for the first win in the program’s history. The celebration that ensued may have been reminiscent of the post-game actions normally reserved for the playoffs, but the Rams were just happy to have finally gotten over the hump.

“I think we learned a lot from last year’s losses, and we had some really good returners that came back this year, and we’ve had some good underclassmen who have stepped up and risen to the occasion,” said Gorham coach Sarah Dolley. “They’re working really hard in practice and they’re doing what they’re supposed to.

“This is huge for our morale, especially coming off Thursday’s game (against Cheverus) that we lost.”

Gorham rallied from a goal down at the beginning of second half to earn the win over the Red Riots.

“We had a few breakdowns. We weren’t getting the ground balls and we weren’t catching the ball,” said South Portland coach Bethany McCauley, whose team beat Westbrook 9-8 in its season opener. “That’s the game. If you can’t catch the ball and get the ground balls you may as well just stand out there.

“We didn’t play our game. We didn’t play as well as we did on Thursday. We just weren’t aggressive They wanted the ball, and then went to it and they got it. That just kind of shows in the outcome.”

Gorham got on the board first, 5:19 into the game, when Ashley Michaud followed her own rebound, scooped it, cut in front of the net from left to right and beat South Portland goalie Chelsea Pettengill with a low shot.

Amy Hodgkins made it 2-0 less than four minutes later. She snatched up a ground ball outside the crease near the right post and shot high.

The Red Riots came right back, though, scoring twice in the final five minutes of the first half to tie the game. First, Rachel Meyer cut in front of Gorham goalie Rachel Lolley and shot on the run 20:17 into the game, and then Page Crowley bounced one in 20 seconds later.

Dolley used the halftime break to get things back in order.

“(We wanted them) watching when they were coming in offense and just kind of holding defensive positioning better, instead of retreating when that person is trying to penetrate past you,” said Dolley. “Offensively, we just needed to run our plays, so we kind of went over those at halftime.”

South Portland took its first lead of the game 2:33 into the second half on a converted free shot attempt by Crowley, but the Rams eventually regrouped and came around. Three and a half minutes later, Molly Follan set up Kayla Nielsen with a pass in front, and she deposited the ball into the lower right corner.

The Riots had their chances over the next seven minutes – Sharon Johnson, Crowley and Annie King all had shots on goal – but Lolley kept the ball out of the net.

“It was nerve-racking, especially when we tied,” said Lolley, who finished with 17 saves. “I was kind of nervous, but I had faith in my team, and I knew that we had the ability and the skills to get back to where we needed to be to win.”

Eventually, the Rams got back to that level.

Hodgkins, Follan and Nielsen scored back-to-back-to-back goals during a three-minute span late in the second half.

McCauley called a timeout with 6:26 to go in the game, but the Riots responded with just one goal when Crowley made it 6-4 with 1:28 to go.

“We got a lot of new players this year who are really experienced, some of the freshmen, and we just worked a lot harder this year with all the new people coming together,” said Gorham junior Jacqui Lara. “We’re a really close team and I think we work well together.”

(Alternative quote to end Current version of same story: No matter what the score is you don’t give up,” said McCauley. “They did a great job, but it was just those little things that were the differences between the teams. They beat us to balls.”

“It was a good game. Gorham played really well, and we played well, but they just played a little bit better.”