At the height of Cape Elizabeth girls soccer’s dominance, Maisie Rayback had a front-row seat.

From 2018-21, the Capers were the toast of Maine high school girls soccer, going 59-2 and winning three consecutive Class B state titles. Rayback, a senior this past fall, was in the youth pipeline when her older sister, Lucy, won two of those championships.

“I remember how she was a part of that and what it was like to see her win state championships,” Rayback said. “A lot of us have been watching this high school team since 5 or 6 and couldn’t wait to be a part of it. … One of our focuses was playing for our 10-year-old selves.”

Cape Elizabeth’s efforts this season would have made the younger versions of themselves proud. Cape added to its legacy with a perfect 18-0 season and another Class B title. For that dominance, the Capers are the 2025-26 Varsity Maine Girls Team of the Year.

Cape Elizabeth was seen as a top contender entering 2025. The Capers returned eight starters — Rayback, Noelle Mallory, Hailey Norman, Kate Hetrick, Chloe Durkin, Addie Miller, Kelsie Law and Haisel McGeachey — from a 2024 team that went 12-3-2 and lost the Class B South final to Greely in overtime.

They matched the hype, scoring 89 goals and conceding only seven. The Capers, who had five all-Western Maine Conference selections (first team: Law, Gorman, Noelle Mallory, Alexa Mallory; second team: McGeachey), beat Yarmouth 2-0 in the South title game and Hermon 3-0 in the state final.

“It was honestly everything we could have asked and hoped for,” Gorman said. “Going into the season, we were always confident — we knew our potential and were very motivated — but we definitely did not expect 18-0, so that was definitely the cherry on top for us.”

Defensively, Cape was remarkable. After beating Yarmouth 2-1 to start the season, the Capers posted six straight clean sheets from Sept. 9-27. In the postseason, the corps of McGeachey, Rayback, Hetrick, Durkin, Finley DiGiovanni and Alice DeGeorge conceded only one goal, in the semifinals to Freeport, across four games.

“It was a great balance between knowing you had coverage and also knowing you had to get back and cover for (your other defenders),” Hetrick said. “We were all great players; you knew the people around you were going to do their job and do it well.”

Cape was just as strong offensively. Led by Noelle Mallory (31 goals, 24 assists), Gorman (15 goals) and Alexa Mallory (also 15 goals), the team recorded at least two goals in all 18 games. A slate of strong WMC opponents didn’t slow down the Capers, who scored four or more goals 13 times.

In Noelle Mallory, Cape had the state’s consensus top player. The Middlebury College commit’s 31 goals were one shy of Maggie Cochran’s program single-season record from 2019. She was Varsity Maine Player of the Year, Gatorade Player of the Year and Maine Soccer Coaches Class B Player of the Year. She also got to play alongside her sister, Alexa, a freshman.

“(Playing with Alexa) is something I’ve been looking forward to for, I would say, almost 10 years,” said Noelle Mallory, who enjoyed a fully healthy campaign after battling injuries her sophomore and junior seasons. “Both of us like to assist as much as we like to score, and that worked out pretty well for us.”

Champions, no matter how formidable, usually have a playoff game where they’re pushed. For Cape, that was the South semifinal against Freeport. Despite losing 5-0 and 4-1 to the Capers in the regular season, Freeport fought them to a 1-1 draw through regulation.

The Capers heavily outshot Freeport but just couldn’t find a second goal and could have easily gotten frustrated. Instead, coach Branden Noltkamper said the Capers were calm and collected, and it paid off 8:50 into overtime when Noelle Mallory scored.

“Freeport did a really good job in that game — they were very organized and made things difficult for us — but nobody panicked,” Noltkamper said. “I think the longer the game goes, you start to think in the back of your mind, ‘Is this going to go to penalties?’ but that word never actually clicked with any of us.”

A 2-0 win over Yarmouth in the South title game — a win that meant a lot to Cape after back-to-back regional final losses in 2023 and 2024 — followed. Forty-eight hours later, the Capers were state champions following a lopsided win in which they outshot previously unbeaten Hermon 30-4.

“Losing in the regional final last year when it was such a close game, that was something we never wanted to experience again, and that led us in the right direction,” Gorman said. “We wanted to work as hard as possible to achieve what we did to make it to states and win, and we did.”

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