SACO — All season long opponents have found the Thornton Academy girls soccer team’s offense near impossible to stop, with the Golden Trojans scoring a total of 72 goals in its first 16 games.

The sole exception, however, came in a Sept. 21 game at Windham, when the Eagles shut down the Thornton juggernaut of an attack, and Ciera Berthiaume scored a late first-half goal to send TA to its only loss of the season.

On Wednesday, the third-seeded Trojans (14-1-1) will get a chance to avenge that lone defeat on a much larger stage when they travel to Windham to take on the top-ranked Eagles (15-0-1) in the Western Class A regional final at 6 p.m.

“We’re very excited, because Windham beat us 1-0 in the regular season,” said Thornton forward Haley DaGraca, who pushed her team into the final with a double overtime goal to beat Falmouth in the regional semis Saturday. “It’s a great match, and it’s going to be a really good game.”

Thornton wasn’t alone in finding it a rough go against the Windham defense, which senior goalkeeper Kate Kneeland led with 13 shutouts, allowing just five goals all season.

While stopping opponents from scoring has been its calling card, Windham hasn’t been too shabby scoring.

Junior forward Jenna Soucy has been at the forefront, scoring 21 times and compiling nine assists. Luisa Sbardella and midfield playmaker Cassie Symonds have also added nine goals apiece, while Berthiaume has chipped in seven.

“They’re good all over the place, in every position,” Thornton coach Chris Kohl said of the Eagles. “They’re well coached, and they just do all the little things really well.

“They have some dangerous forwards, some talented midfielders and some really good lockdown defenders. You put that all together, and that provides a really good challenge.”

If the Trojans are to break down that defense, senior standout Amanda Arnold will likely be at the center of it. Arnold holds the school records in both goals (65) and assists (32) and has been a force again this fall, scoring 16 goals and setting up 15 others.

But the all-New England forward hasn’t been the only Trojan that opponents have had to worry about, as 11 different players have scored for Thornton this season, including 11 goals each from DaGraca and fellow junior Tori Daigle.

And much like their opponents, the Trojans’ defense has been tough to score against, allowing just seven goals on the year, including zero in their past six games.

“I suspect it’s going to be a tough game, another battle,” Kohl said. “Both teams can score a lot of goals, and both teams haven’t given up a lot either. It’s just going to come down to who executes that much better, and whoever does that will get a chance to play on Saturday.”

Windham will be looking for its first-ever trip to the Class A state championship game after winning back-to-back Class B titles in 1993 and 1994.

While the Eagles have found trips to states in recent years hard to come by, Windham coach Deb Lebel certainly hasn’t, winning three Class B state championships during her fours years as Falmouth’s coach from 2005-08.

Lebel ”“ who already had one big victory this week, giving birth to her second child Monday morning ”“ brought that winning formula to Windham, leading the Eagles to a 42-5-2 record in her first three seasons as the head coach, including the No. 1 seed in the Western A tournament each of the last two seasons.

It’s the kind of standard of excellence that Kohl, now in his eighth season as head coach, has steadily built at Thornton.

After not winning a playoff game for eight seasons, the Trojans broke through in a big way in 2009, beating heavily favored Gorham 2-1 in the regional final before falling to Brunswick 3-1 in Thornton’s first-ever state final.

TA continued that success in 2010, when it lost 1-0 to Scarborough in the regional final, and had lost in the regional semis each of the past two falls before breaking through that barrier against Falmouth in what Kohl called “probably the most dramatic ending to a Thornton Academy girls soccer game in the history of the program.”

Kohl probably wouldn’t mind a slightly less pulse-pounding finale Wednesday, with the victor moving on to play the winner of the day’s Eastern regional final ”“ between Mt. Ararat (14-2) and Bangor (15-1) ”“ in the state final at 10 a.m. Saturday at McMann Field in Bath.

“It’s exciting to get back here, to what I call ”˜championship week,’” Kohl said. “We’re honored to be here, and we’re looking forward to competing. If we do the things we’re capable of, we can win.”

— Staff Writer Cameron Dunbar can be contacted at 282-1535, ext. 323.