YARMOUTH — Lake Region High’s girls’ lacrosse team keeps bucking the odds.

The Lakers won only four games in the regular season and barely sneaked into the Class C playoffs as the No. 9 seed, but won road games against Lincoln Academy and No. 1 Winslow. Then they fell behind by four goals early in Wednesday’s semifinal against North Yarmouth Academy.

The Lakers (7-8), though, again showed that they’re not yet ready to relinquish their state title, rallying for an 11-10 win as they set up a championship-game rematch Saturday at Fitzpatrick Stadium against St. Dominic Academy.

“We lost 12 seniors, so it was hard for us to win all of the games that we would win last year, but we’re never the type of team that would just give up,” said sophomore Shauna Hancock, who had six goals and two assists.

Fifth-seeded NYA (8-6) jumped ahead 4-0 on two goals by Catherine Reid and two more by Alev Yilmaz. At that point, the Panthers were dominating in all phases, starting with Reid winning the first five draws.

Hancock switched to the draw and started to help gain possessions, which allowed the Lakers to show their speed through the midfield.

Four Hancock goals and one by McKenzie Seibert enabled Lake Region to pull into a 5-5 tie.

NYA led 6-5 at the half after the fourth of Reid’s five goals and increased the advantage to 8-5 on goals from Reid and Emma Sharp (two goals).

But Hancock continued to press the action and force penalties, which she converted into three consecutive free-position goals, countered once by NYA’s Helen Hamblett.

Then freshman Katie Keenan, normally an offensive facilitator, scored three straight goals to put the Lakers ahead 11-9. NYA answered with a short-handed goal but had to play the final 3:27 a player down because of penalties.

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