TURNER – Leavitt High School boys soccer coach Zac Conlogue had one prediction before the Class B South preliminary game against the No. 10 seed Morse — It wasn’t going to be settled in regulation.
He had good reason for his prediction. The two teams battled to 2-2 Kennebec Valley Athletic Conference draws in their two regular season meetings. And, Conlogue was accurate — 80 minutes didn’t settle anything, and neither did two 15-minute overtime sessions.
That meant the third contest was going to be decided by penalty kicks, and it looked like the Hornets and Shipbuilders might be kicking well into the night when the first eight kickers for each team found the back of the net.
Leavitt goalie Blaine Clark stopped Isaak Flaming in the ninth round, while the Hornets’ ninth kicker, Cole Desmaris, slipped one through. In the 10th round, Clark stopped Gavin Hanna to give Leavitt the 2-1 victory, 9-8 in penalty kicks.
The No. 7 Hornets (5-6-4) will now face No. 2 Freeport on Tuesday in the regional quarterfinals at 6 p.m.
Clark making that key save in the ninth round didn’t ease the nerves for Desmaris.
“No, it made it worse,” Desmaris said. “I was even more nervous after Blaine made the save.”
Clark had been getting beat to the right, and the Shipbuilders kept shooting in that direction.
“I figured it would be tough because PKs are really hard to save,” Clark, who made nine saves in regulation and overtime, said. “They went through all of them, and there was one I was really close on that I thought I could have had. I missed it. I was pretty mad after that.
“But when it got down to those last two, I saw one guy look to the right. I said, ‘He’s probably going to the right,’ so I dove. I’ve been guessing right almost every time. Then the last guy, I figured out he might go to the left, thinking I am going to the right. So I went left and saved it.”
Morse (4-8-3) scored first and looked like it was going to come away with a 1-0 victory. But Garrett Addison, one of the Hornets’ senior captains, changed the momentum late when he picked up the ball just past midfield came into the box and fired a laser past Morse goalie Miles Bobbe with 2:45 remaining in regulation.
“I just wanted to extend our season, for me and the seniors,” Addison said. “I just took the shot when I got it.”
Bobbe made 13 saves in the game.
The Shipbuilders controlled the play for most of the first half and carried that momentum into the second. Right off the second-half kickoff, they went down the field and were able to get a shot on Clark.
They took the 1-0 lead with about 17 minutes remaining. During a scramble in the Leavitt box, Morse’s Lucas Ouimette was able to kick the ball past Clark for the Shipbuilders’ only goal.
“We possessed the ball really well, and Leavitt took its chances and finished,” Morse coach Chuck Reece said.
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