SCARBOROUGH — Sitting on the bench with a bag of ice on her left knee, Sarah Callahan couldn’t play the final 28:20 of Scarborough High’s Class A South girls’ soccer quarterfinal against Falmouth.
But her teammates made sure her earlier efforts weren’t wasted. The third-ranked Red Storm defeated No.6 Falmouth 1-0 Tuesday night, with Callahan, a senior forward, getting the goal early in the first half.
“It’s fitting for us to win this game on her effort,” said Scarborough Coach Mike Farley, whose team had lost its last two regular-season games. “She’s been not practicing for the last week just to try to herself back to Square One normal … We’ve been trying to manage it because she’s a real important player on our team. But it’s tough for me to see her go down.”
Scarborough (13-2) will play seventh-ranked Noble in the Class A South semifinals on Saturday, time to be determined. Falmouth finished 9-4-3.
This game was tight throughout as both defenses turned back rush after rush.
“We were all over them,” said Falmouth Coach Andrew Pelletier. “I couldn’t have been happier with our performance. I think Scarborough is one of the most complete teams in the area and I thought we went toe-for-toe. The game could have gone either way.”
Callahan’s goal came 11:15 into the game, set up by Grace Pettingill, who controlled the ball on the right and sent a low pass toward the middle of the field. The ball squirted through to Callahan about 15 yards out and she placed the ball just inside the right post.
Falmouth goalkeeper Jordan Wolf kept the Red Storm scoreless after that, often ranging out to gather long passes. But Scarborough came close. Callahan hit the crossbar on a blast from the 20 with just over 4:00 left in the first half.
Then with 13:00 remaining in the game, Falmouth’s Kelly Yoon blocked a point-blank shot by Ali Morkriski to keep it a one-goal game. But that was enough because the Red Storm players were determined to win this one for Callahan, who went down after she twisted to turn on a shot with 28:20 remaining in the second half.
“In our huddle, when she was injured, we were, like, ‘We’re doing this for Sarah,’ ” said Pettingill, a junior forward. “There’s no way we’re losing this game.
“We definitely came together as a team,” said Scarborough senior midfielder Madison Blanche. “She scored that first goal and we can’t let her down. It definitely gave us a little boost.”
Blanche was instrumental in Scarborough’s defensive effort. Twice she cleared the ball away on a Falmouth corner kick.
“Falmouth is a really good team,” said Farley. “It’s a credit to my kids to grind it out on the corners and free kicks we gave up. We stepped up and won a lot of the balls and if we didn’t win the initial ball, we won the knockdowns, which is really important against them. It was a battle though … Luckily we had Sarah for enough time to get that goal.”
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