Gorham 12

Bonny Eagle 8

The Bonny Eagle girls’ lacrosse team nearly erased a four-goal halftime deficit last Thursday before Ashley Martin scored two late goals to ice the win for Gorham. Martin finished the game with three goals, but none of the goals were more important than the two she scored in the final 90 seconds.

“At the very end, I put my starters back in because we got nervous,” said Gorham coach Ashley Dyer. “(Martin) is a very good stickhandler. She knows how to go to the goal and get it done. So I knew sticking her in there that she could do it. I told her it was crucial, I said ‘get in there and score,’ and she did.”

The Rams held a 10-4 lead with a little over 10 minutes to play when the Scots began their charge. Amy Richardson scored with 10:05 to go on an over-the-shoulder shot to make it a 10-5 game. Less than a minute later, Becky King tallied her second goal of the game and the Gorham lead was down to four.

Things settled a bit for the next several minutes before another pair of goals from the Scots. Alyssa Severance scored with 3:46 remaining and Gorham’s lead was 10-7. Richardson scored her third goal of the game just over a minute later to make it a two-goal game.

That’s when Dyer put her starters back in.

Exactly one minute after Richardson’s goal, Martin scored to give her team a little more breathing room. With just 1:27 to play, Gorham led 11-8. Martin scored her third goal of the game with just 47.7 seconds to go and any thoughts of a Bonny Eagle comeback were squashed.

“They were on a really good comeback,” Martin said. “They were coming back really strong and we wanted to stop them. We were having difficulty getting it up the field through the midfield, so we had to get it past there. Then we had to work it around and get some really quick goals to slow them up because there were only a couple minutes left.”

Earlier in the game, Gorham got on the board first when Martin scored just over five minutes into the first half. The Rams took a 2-0 lead when Amy Hodgkins beat Bonny Eagle goalie Lindsay Bradeen with 12:58 to play in the opening half.

Bonny Eagle got their first goal 55 seconds later when Stephanie Lombardo scored. Hers was the only Bonny Eagle goal of the first half.

Kristi Zarilli and Kayla Nielson scored the next three goals for the Rams to give them a 5-1 halftime advantage. Nielson finished the day with three goals.

“Defense was a big part,” Dyer said. “We’ve been working on that in practice a lot. We were a little confused, this is my first year, and in the past they have done it differently. From being a lacrosse player at USM, I added in what we did there and we did some zone defense. The communication was awesome and the shifting. They put it right together and it worked really well. The transition down the field was very crucial and was very good.”

The loss was the first of the year for Bonny Eagle. They then lost their second game to fall to 0-2 on the year. The win was the first of the year for the Rams and the first for their new coach.

“It’s awesome, especially being a new coach,” Dyer said. “There is a lot of pressure and the first win is pretty fantastic. It takes a little pressure and stress off me.”

Bonny Eagle was scheduled to face Thornton Academy and Noble this week. The Rams were scheduled to take on the defending Class A state champions, Massabesic.

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