FALMOUTH — On six previous corner kicks, Allie Cunningham waited for a chance that never came.
On the seventh, fortune smiled upon her. A ball headed by teammate Devin Quinn deflected off a defender and landed at Cunningham’s feet.
“I just tried to get a foot on it,” she said. “We’ve had a lot of games where we don’t score until the last minute, so we’ve learned not to give up.”
Cunningham’s goal came in the third-to-last minute Friday night and gave sixth-seeded Falmouth a 1-0 victory over 11th-ranked Thornton Academy in a Class A South girls’ soccer prelim game.
Falmouth (9-3-3) advanced to a quarterfinal, likely Tuesday, at third-seeded Scarborough (12-2). The Red Storm won their regular-season meeting 2-0 on Oct. 15.
Thornton (5-10), lost 1-0 in overtime to Falmouth earlier this month.
Both goals came on set pieces and both involved Quinn, Falmouth’s 5-foot-9 midfielder. On Friday night she headed the corner kick from Kelly Yoon in the direction of Cunningham.
“I saw Allie near post so maybe I headed it to her a little bit,” Quinn said, “but mostly it’s just hoping that someone can get a foot on it.”
Until that point the game was dominated by defense punctuated by stellar goaltending. Thornton threatened twice in the first half, when a 25-yard blast from Alyanna Beaudoin struck the crossbar and Kylie Bedard couldn’t quite get a foot on the rebound, then when a chipped ball bounced over the head of Falmouth keeper Jordan Wolf, who turned her back, chased it down and swatted it clear just before it reached the plane of the goal line. It was the best of her six saves.
“Amazing saves,” Cunningham said. “I’ll admit I was a little worried on that one.”
Grace Mears of Thornton was a little busier, finishing with 10 saves. Two of them came in her denial of a breakaway by Falmouth’s leading scorer, Lexie Bugbee, who sprung free midway through the second half by a pass from Elise Gearan.
Mears blocked the first shot, then smothered the second after the ball caromed back to Bugbee.
“She made a spectacular save, keeping us in the game,” Trojans Coach Natalie Sharland said. “The game could have gone either way in the last 10 minutes. We gave away too many corners, too many opportunities for Falmouth.”
Thornton had two corner kicks, both in the second half.
“We’re always dangerous on set pieces,” Falmouth Coach Andrew Pelletier said. “We spend quite a bit of time on them.”
The biggest struggle for Falmouth this season has been scoring. Only twice, and not since mid-September, has the team had more than two goals in a game. Bugbee leads the team with seven.
“It would be nice to be able to rely on somebody in this situation,” Pelletier said, “but it’s also nice because it’s always a team effort.”
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