Brunswick’s Lauren Labbe celebrates her goal against Yarmouth/Freeport during the North regional girls hockey championship game Wednesday in Auburn. Brunswick won, 2-1. Brianna Soukup/Portland Press Herald

AUBURN — Both regular-season matchups between the Brunswick and Yarmouth/Freeport girls hockey teams this season were decided by one goal, and the teams were ranked second and third in the most recent Varsity Maine poll.

It’s no surprise, then, that Wednesday’s North regional final at Norway Savings Bank Arena was more of the same. Again, the game was decided by the slimmest of margins, and for the first time in program history, it’ll be Brunswick going on to Saturday’s state championship game after a 2-1 win.

“The team is buzzing,” Brunswick senior forward Lauren Labbe said. “We just went out there and we worked our you-know-whats off. We wanted it, and I don’t know, everyone is shedding a few tears. We’re just so proud, and we’re happy.”

Brunswick (16-4) will face Cheverus/Windham/Medomak Valley (16-1-1) at Portland’s Troubh Ice Arena at 3 p.m. Saturday. Cheverus is looking for its third straight state title after beating the Portland co-op earlier in the evening, 7-1.

Yarmouth/Freeport (16-4-1), the North’s top seed, was trying to set up a third straight state final against Cheverus, and the Clippers struck first at 2:08 of the first period. Senior winger Drea Rideout intercepted a pass in the Yarmouth/Freeport offensive zone and took a shot off that was stopped by junior goalie Hensleigh Labonte, but Celia Zinman gathered the rebound and scored.

Labonte, who finished the night with 30 saves, said the early goal was a wake-up call for her and her teammates, a handful of which were playing through the flu.

“I think that first goal just kind of made us all want it a lot more,” Labonte said. “And so we just all were going 1,000,000% after that.”

Brunswick tied it at 10:54 of the first period. A shot by Solveig Ledwick was stopped by Lexi Wiles (25 saves), but senior forward Paige Botts put in the rebound with one second remaining on a power play.

The Clippers had several near misses as they tried to retake the lead toward the end of the period and early in the second.

“I’d be lying if I said it was our best game of hockey,” Yarmouth/Freeport coach Dave Intraversato said. “Brunswick’s a tough team. They’ve got a lot of good players out there, and you really have to play your best at all times, because they can snipe at any point. Labbe, Palmer, Ledwick, they’re just really solid players and hard to stop sometimes, you know, they brought it tonight. We had a bunch of missed pucks.”

At 10:58 of the second period, Labbe unleashed a strong shot from inside the blue line that eluded Wiles to give the Dragons the lead.

Labbe’s pep talk ahead of the final period helped seal the deal.

“Because we all know that Yarmouth is a really good team, and they’re hard to beat, I went in, I said, ‘You got to put your sickness aside. We can either go home sore or we can go home (with a) win,'” Labbe said.

“I say it over and over again, it’s a one-town team,” said Brunswick coach Chris Ledwick, alluding to the fact that most other girls’ hockey programs are co-ops that include several schools. “They’re in school with each other all day long. They see everybody there. They’re very accountable to each other and they play hard for each other and for the school. So it was just good to see that for them — for them to finally get that reward that they’ve just never had out there.”