SACO — Heading into the 2017 field hockey season, Westbrook was one of the teams everyone was pointing to as a favorite to bring home a state championship, while the Biddeford Tigers were looked at as an up-and-coming team that might be a year away from their own title run.

That turned out to be the case as the No. 6 Blue Blazes were dominant in a 2-0 win over the No. 4 Tigers in the Class A South championship.

Westbrook, which hadn’t been to the state finals since 1980, will have a chance to win a state title when they face powerhouse Skowhegan in the championship game on Saturday at Falmouth High School.

The Blue Blazes gave up four goals in a 4-3 loss to Biddeford earlier this month, but when their entire season was on the line they were able to hold the Tigers to just three shots.

“I feel like they shut down our forces, our highest scoring players — Abby Allen, Sarrah Marcotte and Paige Laverriere — but they definitely closed in on us,” said Biddeford coach Caitlin Albert, who had high praise for Westbrook coaches Theresa Hendrix and Beth Murphy. “I give kudos to Beth and Theresa, they came really prepared and I really do wish them well.”

Neither team was able to get anything going offensively early on, but Westbrook would finally get on the board when Avery Tucker broke away from the pack and beat Biddeford goalie Taylor Wildes for the score to make it 1-0 with 3:25 left in the half.

“That’s hard, goalie on player, that’s definitely really hard,” said Albert of the fastbreak goal.

Westbrook held the 1-goal lead — and a 5-0 advantage in shots on goal — heading into the halftime break.

The Blue Blazes had several chances to add to their lead but Wildes, who finished with 14 saves, made several nice stops and Paige Laverriere stopped a shot with her stick on a Westbrook penalty corner.

While her defense held the Blue Blazes to just two goals, Albert felt her team was playing catch-up for most of the night.

“The defense was a little frantic, and to me I think it was more recovering when you really wanted to already be in that place. They are a quick team and they capitalized on their fast breaks,” said Albert.

Westbrook added an insurance goal with 13:43 remaining as Maddison LeBeau scored on a penalty corner.

Biddeford had a few chances down the stretch, but the Tigers were unable to get a clean shot on the Westbrook goal.

Despite the tough loss, Albert was proud of her team and thankful to seniors Sarrah Marcotte, Peyton McKeown and Katie Monson for their contributions to the program.

“Peyton McKeown and Sarrah Marcotte both started playing their sophomore year, and Katie Monson started playing her junior year, so their freshman year I literally had no freshman,” recalled Albert. “They have really built the program … they’ve been here for a short while, and they really picked up the sport a lot and they have taught so much to the younger girls that we wouldn’t be where we are without them.”

While Biddeford will certainly miss those seniors — including Marcotte who set a single-season scoring record with 23 goals — Albert will have plenty of talent coming back next season as the Tigers renew their quest for their first state title since 1990.

“The thing is it’s good that now they have this taste in their mouth of what this feels like because we are so young. We are a junior-laden team and there is a lot to be said about a team who doesn’t realize how much is on the line, this was just another game for them, and Westbrook just wanted it more today,” said Albert.

Albert believes this year’s experience will help the Tigers next season.

“It’s so big. Just seeing what we need to work on and basically the thing is with having a young team is you see the competition and it’s going to be the same next year,” Albert said. “There might be some talented freshman coming up, but they pretty much know what they’re going to be facing next year. So it’s good to get a step ahead of it, but obviously we have a long way to go.”

One thing Albert hopes will help the Tigers next season is a renovated Waterhouse Field, which is expected to get a new turf surface which will allow the Biddeford field hockey team to move from Doran Field to Waterhouse.

“I pray that we can get turf on Waterhouse, it will be so good,” said Albert. “We’ve been trying to find turf all week and it’s been like we have a 7 (p.m.) practice and then we have a 7 a.m. practice, it hasn’t been consistent and it really is an unfair advantage for the teams that have turf. We’re so fast and we capitalize on turf, usually.”

— Sports Editor Pat McDonald can be reached at [email protected] or at 282-1535 ext. 322. Follow the Journal Tribune Sports Department on Twitter @JournalTsports.