LEWISTON — After a delayed start, fourth-seeded Wells ousted top seed Maranacook/Winthrop with a 7-5 win in a Class C South semifinal girls lacrosse game Wednesday at Lewiston High School.

“They improved so much this season, just in the last couple of weeks. We have like a whole new offense this year, they lost seven seniors last year,” Wells first-year coach Morgan Pike said. “They have just come together as a full team and really wanted this. They played their hearts out, and I think that they really deserved this win.”

The Warriors (12-4) will face Waynflete (12-4) in the Class C state title game Saturday at Fitzpatrick Stadium in Portland. The two finalists met once in the regular season, when the Flyers prevailed 9-5 on May 10.

“We kind of have a fire under our butts because we lost to them in the season,” Kendall Maxon said. “We know how they play — we came and watched them play in the last game (against Traip Academy) — so we’re just going to work on the things that we saw in the last game and play as hard as we can to win that one as well.”

Maxon led Wells with three goals. Caitlin Rooney added two goals, and Cali Leighton and Payton Maxon each tallied one.

Kendall Maxon said she felt confident working the ball around the Black Bears’ high-pressure man-to-man defense.

“She’s a huge leader for our team,” Pike said of Maxon. “She embodies everything that we look for in our program. She’s a captain and she just does a great job. She’s very smart with the ball and knows when to pull it out and when she can take her defender one-on-one. She’s made so much progress this season.”

Emerson Davis and Stella Stewart each scored twice for the Black Bears (14-2) and Ashley Deschamp had one goal.

Zach Stewart said Davis has been “the heart and soul of our team,” this season and is “one of the most unselfish people that we have.”

“She’ll always be the one giving the assist, and tonight, she had a couple of goals, and it really lit us up because, you know, she’s usually one of the ones that’s feeding, getting the ground balls, moving and transitions,” Stewart said.

He added that Stella Stewart’s output cam from being able to force her way through double and triple teams.

The start of the game was delayed an hour-and-a-half due to a weather delay that first affected Waynflete’s 18-6 win over Traip in the earlier semifinal.

Once the contest started, the Warriors grabbed the lead and maintained it the remainder of the game.

“I think that we were patient offensively, and we kind of had to adjust to, obviously, what they were giving us,” Pike said. “We adjusted to what they did, but we didn’t really force anything. The first couple goals, I feel like we got the ball off the draw and saw what they were giving us.”

The Black Bears found an offensive rhythm in the third quarter, scoring three of their five goals, but it wasn’t enough to overcome Maxon’s and Rooney’s performances.

Zach Stewart said he told Maranacook/Winthrop to play the second half in a way that would leave them with no regrets.

“I told them to make sure that there wasn’t a ground ball that you could have maybe had or that I could have rode a little bit harder,” Stewart said.

The two teams were close on draw controls, with Wells earning 10 and Maranacook finishing with six. In goal, Kayla Bolton made 14 saves for Wells while Maranacook/Winthrop’s Mavia Lenane made six.

“Mavia played lights out,” Stewart said. “She stepped in as keeper last year because we didn’t have somebody, so she’s had less than a year to figure out how to be a keeper. She took this team on her back until the divisional, so I’m super proud of her.”

Black Bears sophomore Hadley Farwell went down in the last few seconds of the first half with a knee injury, which Zach Stewart said he suspects was an ACL injury.

Pike said she was proud how the Warriors played as a team, and she felt like equal effort was put out on both sides of the restraining line.

Maranacook’s three seniors — Tilden Tinkham, Lenane and Deschamp — will be missed by the Black Bears, Stewart said.

“They could have checked out and you know, had the senioritis thing, but they were still in it and they really fully emotionally (invested) and it was  really awesome.”