YARMOUTH

Saturday’s Class B South preliminary playoff match was supposed to be a home fixture for the Freeport High School girls soccer team.

Instead, it was the Falcons’ first game on turf all season against a Maranacook team they hadn’t played before, in the pouring rain.

They made the most of it.

Tia Peterson and Jessie Driscoll scored a pair of opportunistic goals on the rain-soaked North Yarmouth Academy turf to give Freeport a 2-0 win and a date in the quarterfinals.

“We have not been on turf this season,” Freeport coach Elayna Girardin said. “So that was a big adjustment. As the game went on, especially near the end where the rain stopped, we were able to start playing our passing game. Throughout the game, we just started getting more and more confidence with the turf and with the weather.”

In the beginning, though, it took both teams a while to adjust. Both No. 7 Freeport (8-5-2) and No. 10 Maranacook (6-7-2) had passes flying around, sometimes careening off shin guards and sometimes rolling straight into the woods next to the turf. Rarely were more than a couple passes strung together cleanly.

“It’s pretty slippery, so you definitely have to move faster than usual,” Peterson said. “You have to get a good touch on it, or else it will just pop over your foot or go right under.”

The Black Bears managed two shots in the opening 10 minutes, but both flew wide and high of the net. The Falcons earned a pair of free kicks in the 20th minute (save, wide), but it wasn’t until the 29th minute that they put together a truly dangerous chance.

Running together at the Maranacook back line, Peterson and Catriona Gould slid a couple give-and-go passes back and forth until Peterson was through. On the last pass, she ran the ball down and shot it over charging keeper Skyeler Webb to open the scoring.

“I always joke around ‘our team has a scoring problem,’” Girardin said. “But, the nice thing is that we have some freshmen that, when they are in front of the goal, they tend to score. Both Tia Peterson and Catriona Gould just see it. They see that goal and they have a knack for it.”

“Me and Catriona (Gould) were running down and she passed it and I passed it back,” Peterson said. “The goalie came out and she did it again. We just know.

“I know how she plays, I know when she’s going to pass or dribble and I know where she wants the ball.”

Rain, rain go away

The rain gradually died down in the second half and with it came a few more chances. Maranacook fired a shot on Jordan Randall’s net just two minutes into the frame, but Randall held on in traffic. All three of the Black Bears’ shots in the second half were on net, but Randall was in control.

About 10 minutes after the opening chance, Freeport made its move on a corner. After no one connected on a long, curling delivery into the box, the ball hit off a leg and rolled over to the far side, where winger Driscoll was waiting for it. She took a step, loaded up and curled a perfectly placed shot into the upper left-hand corner of the net, out of Webb’s reach.

It was 2-0 and Maranacook simply didn’t have enough chances to recover.

“On that second goal, we talked about watching that ball come out,” Girardin said. “Maranacook does a good job of packing players in and we practiced on waiting for that and finishing it.”

The Black Bears’ last real sequence of pressure came with 23 minutes left, where two long free kicks were hit right at Randall and easily gathered. Freeport, which put six of its 10 total shots on target, tested Webb one last time in the 77th minute, where she was forced to dive to the turf and send a ball out for a corner.

The Falcons took seven corners in the match, while Maranacook managed just one. Webb made four saves and Randall three.

On top of forcing physical adjustments like touch and passing, the rainy weather simply limited Freeport’s play style a good chunk of the match. Girardin said that when the team started focusing on getting the ball out wide and playing its typical passing style, things really opened up.

“At halftime, one of the things we talked about is we can’t control the weather,” Girardin said. “I think we accepted that pretty early and I think that helped.”

Freeport 2,
Maranacook 0

Saturday at North Yarmouth Academy
Maranacook — 0 0 — 0
Freeport — 1 1 — 2
Goals — (F) Tia Peterson, Jessie
Driscoll.
Assists — (F) Catriona Gould.
Shots on goal — Freeport 6, Maranacook 3.
Saves — (M) Skyeler Webb 4; (F)
Jordan Randall 3.
Corner kicks — Freeport 7, Maranacook 1.
Records — Freeport 7-5-2, Maranacook 6-7-2.
Up next for the Falcons — Class B
South quarterfinal at No. 2 Greely,
TBA.