OAKLAND — The North Yarmouth Academy boys’ soccer team wasn’t exactly nursing a one-goal lead midway through the second half of Tuesday night’s Class D South championship game against Islesboro. The Panthers were controlling play and keeping the pressure on the Eagles. Still, they felt they needed at least one more goal for comfort.

That’s when Chas Rohde stepped up. The senior scored a pair of goals in the span of four minutes, helping NYA cement a 4-0 win and its third consecutive regional title.

“I knew something was coming. We’d been building. We had a great halftime talk from the coaches. I think the team knew what we had to do, and I was just lucky to get on the end of it,” Rohde said.

NYA, the No. 3 seed, is 16-0-1 and will face Lee Academy, which won the D North title with a 1-0 win over Wisdom, in the Class D state championship game in Presque Isle. Playing in its first regional championship game, top seed Islesboro ends the season at 10-5-2.

Rohde’s goal with 22:04 left came on a hard shot from the top of the box and gave the Panthers a 2-0 lead. With 18:18 to play, Rohde struck again for a 3-0 lead. Theo Falgren’s goal with 10:47 to play closed the scoring.

“We knew they had played a great game against Richmond (in the regular season), who played a great game against us. We had to stick to the game plan and control what we can control and posses the ball,” Rohde said.

NYA got on the board with 36:44 left in the first half, when Ethan Brochu’s shot got past Islesboro keeper Robert Conover.

The Panthers had a chance to extend their lead with five minutes left in the first half, when Rohde broke in to the left of Conover, who was able to make the save and keep it a one-goal game entering the half. Rohde had another chance to extend NYA’s lead early in the second half, but his shot from the left rung off the right post.

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