Bangor 1

Scarborough 0

The Scarborough boys’ soccer team entered the Class A state championship game as the defending champions. But with just over five minutes to go in the second overtime, that title defense officially ended. Bangor’s Ryan Larochelle found himself in the right place at the right time and he scored off a corner kick to give the Rams a 1-0 win.

“Usually I’ll wait out around the 18 from the outside back position on corner kicks and throw ins,” said Larochelle. “But this time since it was so close to the end of the game, my brother Christian came over from the other side and said ‘hey you go in on this one. Go toward the (penalty kick) line and I’ll wait out for you. Let’s go all out for this one corner kick since we’ve got nothing to lose right now.’ So I came in to the 12 and the ball skips through. I took that one touch to settle it and I had time to volley it in.”

The goal was Larochelle’s first varsity goal.

“We just didn’t defend that play particularly well and they made a nice play on it,” said Scarborough coach Mark Diaz.

Scarborough dominated most of the game but they were simply unable to get the ball past Bangor goalkeeper Aaron Taft. Taft made 17 saves for the shutout.

“It was a great game,” said Diaz. You’ve got to give Bangor credit, they played great defense. They made the saves when they had to and sometimes that happens in soccer. I thought we carried the play, but that’s not enough sometimes. It was one of those days. I give them credit.”

Early in the game, the Red Storm showed some offensive muscle. They fired off shot after shot. Some of them went wide, others high. Many were stopped by Taft.

And the Rams also had their share of chances in the first half. They got the ball into the Scarborough box twice on misplays by the Storm. And on both occasions Red Storm defenders stood up and kept the ball out of the net.

The first half ended in a scoreless 0-0 draw as neither team was able to take advantage of their scoring chances.

Scarborough netminder Adam Blanchard was stuffing all of Bangor’s opportunities – diving and jumping all over the box to stop the each and every ball headed his way.

And on the other end of the field, Taft was stopping yet another rash of Scarborough shots.

“Our shot selection was OK. It could have been better,” said Diaz. “I thought we’d get a couple more quality shots, but that’s the way it goes. I thought we’d get some rebounds and we didn’t put enough stuff on net is what it came down to.”

Toward the end of the game, a series of yellow cards sent both coaches scrambling to make adjustments. Bangor’s Tony Martinez was carded after being warned twice by an official. At the same time, Scarborough received a couple of cards as well.

“I think those cards threw us off a little bit,” said Diaz. “I had to make some adjustments and they were very strange calls to say the very least. It was my starting sweeper and without a doubt my best forward, so it was crazy. It forced us to do some things. It took us a little out of our game. But that’s not an excuse, its part of the game.”

The game was still scoreless after a full 80 minutes of play, meaning the state championship would be decided in sudden death overtime.

The Red Storm came out strong in the first extra period with six shots to none for the Rams. But once again for the Storm, none of those shots got past Taft.

“We knew they were going to be fast,” said Bangor coach Adam Leach. “We knew we had to contend with that. Pretty much it was try to contain them and hold on and see if we could take care of our opportunities.”

In the second overtime, the Rams got the opportunity they’d waited for in the form of a corner kick. Ryan Larochelle went all out to try to score the game-winner and it worked.

“I think it’s fitting that a back scored that goal because the guys played tremendous defense,” said Leach.

The goal ended Scarborough’s perfect season and their title defense all at once.

“Our juniors and sophomores and freshmen are pretty strong,” said Diaz. “Hopefully we’ll learn from this and come back again. But we’ll see what happens.”

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