WATERBORO — When the Massabesic girls’ lacrosse team jumped out to a quick 3-0 lead in Monday night’s game against Falmouth, it seemed like the Madison Drain-Morgan Pike offensive duo would be too much for the Yachtsmen to handle.
But after Drain scored off the opening draw and Pike added a pair of goals, Falmouth outscored the Mustangs 6-1 over the next 17 minutes for a 6-4 lead with a minute left in the first half.
“It was an odd game,” Massabesic Coach Brooks Bowen said. “They ramp it up and, all the sudden, it’s a tied lacrosse game.”
Massabesic scored two goals in the final 40 seconds of the first period to enter halftime tied 6-6 before taking the lead for good in the second. Led by Pike’s four goals, the returning Class A champions edged Falmouth 11-9 in what could be a state final preview.
“Our coach came in at halftime and said, ‘This is a dog fight, and we need to come out a lot harder than we went in,’” said Drain, who scored twice for Massabesic (3-0). “Ending the half tied pushed us a little harder to come out and finish it.”
The Yachtsmen (4-2) may have lost the game, but they won 16 of 22 draws and got seven saves from their goalkeeper Hannah Dubinsky. Caitlyn Camelio led Yarmouth’s offense with five goals.
“Winning the draw is huge, and that’s something Massabesic has traditionally been very good at,” Falmouth Coach Ashley Pullen said. “That was big for us, for sure. When you’re possessing the ball, the other team can’t score.”
But the Mustangs’ defense, backstopped by goalkeeper Lydia Wasina (six saves), forced turnover after turnover to generate Massabesic’s always dynamic offense.
In the opening two minutes of the second half, Logan Champlin and Cailyn Forrester opened up an 8-6 lead for the Mustangs. Following a pair of point-blank saves from Dubinsky, Camelio scored from Kayla Sarazin (two goals) to pull the Yachtsmen within a goal of tying the score again with 19 minutes left.
“Those are not easy saves to makes — you barely have any reaction time at all,” Pullen said of Dubinsky, who is a first-year starter. “Anytime you have a keeper that can make great saves like that, your offense starts with her.”
Drain scored from Pike with 15:23 left before Forrester added her second goal less than a minute later to pull Massabesic up 10-7. But the Mustangs could never quite put the game away. Shortly after Camelio’s shot from the free position hit the crossbar with 11 minutes left, she capitalized on a Massabesic turnover with her final goal. Avi Fishman, a freshman, scored from Sarazin to cut Massabesic’s lead to 10-9 with 9:23 left before Skylar Renaud answered for the Mustangs with the final goal of the game.
In the first half, Falmouth bounced back from a three goal deficit with two goals from Camelio and one from Sarazin. Pike gave Massabesic a short-lived 4-3 lead with 12:39 left before Falmouth went on another run with goals from Chelsey Smithwick, Sarazin and Camelio. Massabesic’s Hallie Benton and Pike rounded out the scoring for the first half.
“We knew that we could play with them,” Pullen said. “I think with a few tweaks here and there, things could have been different.”
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