CUMBERLAND — In a duel between girls’ soccer teams that won championships last fall, Greely came out on top Saturday morning in a Western Maine Conference game against Waynflete.

Brooke Obar, a freshman, scored twice and the defending Class B state champions also got goals from Riley Soule and Courtney Sullivan in a 4-0 victory.

The Rangers (4-1) rebounded from their first loss of the season, a 2-1 defeat Thursday night at Cape Elizabeth.

“We’ve been struggling in the first half (of games) and then have picked it up in the second half,” said Obar, one of seven freshmen on Greely’s varsity roster. “Today, we started it in the first half and kept it all the way through.”

All of the goals came in the first half.

“If we played the first half like we played the second half, we probably would have been in the game much more,” Waynflete Coach Todd Dominski said. “We had some major lapses on marking up and things like that (in the first half). Playing against a good team that moves the ball and moves you out of space shows up those things.”

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Obar opened the scoring in the sixth minute when she beat the defense to Katie Steinberg’s through ball and put a shot inside the near post from the left side of the penalty area.

Six minutes later, Soule, one of three Greely seniors, turned Caroline Swaney’s crossing pass from the right corner into a goal to make it 2-0.

Sullivan converted Skylar Cooney’s corner kick from the right side, scoring with a shot just outside the goal box in the 22nd minute.

Obar completed the scoring about four minutes before halftime when her blast from just outside the penalty area went inside the left post, beyond the reach of Waynflete goalie Ali Pope, who made 12 saves.

“We’re starting to jell more as a team, and that is really important for us,” Obar said. “We have to continue to communicate, work hard in practice and keep the energy up in both halves of the game.”

Coach Josh Muscadin indicated the Rangers are still a work in progress.

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“We’ve been working on some stuff, and some of those things are beginning to show up, but I’d like to see a little bit more of that,” he said. “We need more communication, more touches and (more) making decisions that are going to help the team.

“It’s a very young team, so we have a lot to look forward to.”

Despite the lopsided loss, Dominski said the Flyers, the reigning Class C South champions, benefited from playing a team of Greely’s caliber.

“We play these teams so we can get better, and you definitely saw that we got better in the second half,” he said. “I’d much rather come in and play a game like this then go out and trounce somebody. This helps us tremendously.”


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