YORK

The final month of the regular season convinced York High School girls soccer coach Wally Caldwell that his team was ready to do some damage this postseason.

York took its first step on Monday.

Freshman Eliza Linn’s goal nearly 15 minutes into the game of Tuesday’s night Class B South quarterfinal against No. 5 Morse was complimented by junior Halee Bando’s second-half goal in fourth-seeded York’s 2-0 victory.

“We were definitely nervous because we’ve never played Morse before, so we didn’t know what to expect,” York senior Payton Humphrey said. “Scoring that first goal was settling to relax down. You could tell we had the stronger team and it was just a matter of finishing. They had a strong goalie, it was just figuring to get it to the corners.”

York (9-5-1) travels to top-seeded Yarmouth (15-0) in Saturday’s regional semifinals at 4 p.m., after the Clippers advanced with a 1-0 win over No. 8 Wells (10-6). The Wildcats are 6-1 since dropping a 4- 0 decision to Yarmouth. The Clippers also won an early-season meeting by a 3-0 score.

“We’ve been playing well the past five weeks, so what we did tonight didn’t surprise me at all,” Caldwell said. “We’re looking forward to playing Yarmouth, and I don’t think Yarmouth is looking forward to playing us. I think we give them looks that other teams can’t because of the way we move the ball.”

Morse ( 9- 4- 2) had only one shot on York goalie Anna Baker as the Wildcats dictated play throughout.

Linn had a shot stopped by Morse goalie Marissa Parks (10 saves), but shortly converted after Humphrey pushed ahead a pass and Linn blasted it to the top right corner to give York a 1-0 lead with 25:17 left in the first half.

“Payton passed it to me up the middle, and I just went top right,” Linn said. “ It felt good once I let it go.”

“I saw Eliza wide open with no defenders around her, knew she was going to finish it,” Humphrey said.

Caldwell compared Linn’s foot skill to that of 2008 York graduate and standout Chelsey Tewell. It was Linn’s sixth goal of the season.

“ She has the quickest feet I’ve had since Chelsey Tewell,” Caldwell said. “ When she figures out what she can do to freeze defenders. That quick step will get by just about anyone.”

Albertson stopped shots by Erin O’Donnell and Nina Howe late in the first half, but Bando scored midway through the second half off a Delaney LaBonte pass to give the Wildcats a 2-0 lead.

“There were sequences there where we were getting six, seven passes in a row,” Caldwell said. “In the first half, if we would’ve slotted those balls a little better than we did it could’ve been a little bit different. We gave ourselves a lot of scoring opportunities.”

“I thought (Parks) did a great job of keeping them at bay, then Linn had a good shot and there was nothing anyone could do,” Morse coach Steve Boyce said. “We had a tough time up the middle of the field. Without control in the middle of the field, it’s tough to get the ball up front.”

Humphrey is excited to get one more chance against Yarmouth, with the winner advancing to next Wednesday’s regional championship game.

“We can definitely compete with Yarmouth,” Humphrey said. “I know our scores haven’t showed it the past few times, but I think we’ve given them our best game. We’ve seen them twice. We know what they got, they know what we got, but I think we’re finally ready to beat them.”

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