FALMOUTH — Sophomore midfielder Mariah Deschino turned heads in a different way Wednesday night, and her Cape Elizabeth teammates were sure glad she did.

Deschino, a key player in the Capers’ transition game, showed off her scoring touch, netting two key goals in Cape Elizabeth’s 7-6 come-from-behind victory over Falmouth in a Class B Western Maine Conference girls’ lacrosse game at Falmouth High School Stadium Field.

Cape Elizabeth’s Kirsten Rudberg defends as Falmouth’s Gabriel Farrell looks for an open teammate Wednesday at Falmouth High. The Capers rallied for a 7-6 win. Whitney Hayward/Staff Photographer

“She’s wicked fast,” said Cape Elizabeth’s first-year coach, Alex Spark. “She’s only a sophomore and she’s moving from being a soccer player playing lacrosse to getting more comfortable as a lacrosse player. She’s working hard on her stick work. She sure doesn’t have any trouble running up field with the ball.”

Cape was trailing 6-4 with 11 minutes to play when Deschino gathered the ball in her end and bolted through the midfield. Instead of passing to a teammate, she juked a defender and ran in alone to beat Falmouth goalie Mary Budri (six saves, two on free positions.)

“It felt really great it,” she said. “I think it gave us energy that we needed.”

Kirsten Rudberg then dodged her way in on goal to score her second of the night to tie the game at 6 with 5:17 to go.

“We were running a play that I had missed on like three times earlier in the game,” Rudberg said. “It was just a key turning point and I told myself I had to make this one. It was set up by the whole team and it was awesome.”

With 1:27 left, Deschino again sailed through the midfield and headed for goal. She drew a foul and scored from the free position to make it 7-6 with 1:27 left.

Emma Landes also had two goals for Cape Elizabeth (3-1), and Kate Bosworth made 12 saves, none bigger than a point-blank stop on Sydney Bell (three goals) with 30 seconds to play.

“It just shows the girls how hard they can work and how mental the game of lacrosse is,” Spark said. “We really focused on composure and playing as a team to make it a team win.”

Falmouth (2-1) scored three goals in a nine-minute span to build a 3-1 lead and go into halftime up, 4-3.

Lizzie Goodrich had two goals and Devon Sarazin one as the Yachtsmen scrambled to fill in for a number of starters who did not play because of illness or injury.

“Honestly, we beat ourselves,” Falmouth Coach Kait Johnson said. “The girls have been working so hard, really putting the time in to improve. This was just a lapse. We’re going to take accountability for it and learn from it.”

Both teams put in impressive defensive efforts. Falmouth defenders Nina Marsanskis, Jenna Costa and Nicole Budri helped limit Cape attackers to 12 shots on goal.

Cape, meanwhile, got big defensive games from Brette Lennon, Rhoen Fiutak and in particular from Mo Lavalle. Lavalle made two key plays in the second half. The first was a key ground ball that led to Deschino’s first goal. The second came about two minutes later, when she broke up a long pass to a Falmouth attacker who was lurking alone at the top of the 12-meter fan.

“On defense, we felt that when we would score, we’d let them score and get right back into it,” Lavalle said. “Toward the end, we decided we can’t do that anymore and we just put a stop to it.”

Rudberg is glad to see the Capers bounce back from a tough 10-5 loss to York on Saturday. She said, “This definitely gives us the confidence we need to move forward.”

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