For all of the first half and more than three-quarters of the second, Meaghan Mingo made sure that Friday’s girls soccer game between Cheverus and Gorham remained tied at zero. Mingo, the Stags’ senior goalie, made diving punches and reckless charges out of her crease.

The Rams kept attacking – down both wings, from the center and out of both corners – and Mingo kept saving. It was the type of game where one of three things was destined to happen:

1. all the hard work would pay off and the Gorham offense would finally catch Mingo out of position. or 2. the Rams would pop home a fluke goal and Mingo’s effort would be all for naught.

The soccer gods, as it turned out, were in a cruel mood.

With approximately 34:30 expired in the second half, Gorham junior midfielder Kelsey Wilson headed a Cheverus goal kick back toward the Cheverus end of the field. Mingo charged foward to play the long, but harmless header. She had just about reached the arcing ball when she realized she had misjudged the bounce. As she tried to adjust, she slipped, the crowd gasped and the ball slowly dribbled across the goal line.

The Rams escaped with a 1-0 win and improved to 10-1, while Cheverus fell to 7-4-1.

“I mean, it’s awesome to score, but it was just such a hard way to end such a hard-fought game,” said Wilson.

Her teammate, Nicole Robitaille, didn’t feel quite so bad about the goal.

“I feel that we dominated that game,” she said. “That goal was unlucky on their part, but I think we deserved it.”

The Rams began mounting pressure on Mingo from get-go.

Four minutes into the game she charged out of her box to beat freshman forward Rachel Burns to a long through-ball. Three minutes later Burns got to a through-ball and volleyed a hard shot toward the left corner. This time Mingo got into position to take the shot off her chest. She deflected a similar shot wide at the 20:30 mark, and then made sure the Rams didn’t score on three straight corner kicks five minutes later.

Wilson was stymied by a diving save on a shot from 25 yards with nine minutes to go in the half. And so, the score remained tied.

“I said at halftime, ‘There is nothing more that we can ask of this girl, although we will in the second half.’ She made some incredible saves,” said Cheverus coach Bryn Carlson.

The Gorham offense picked up where it left off at the start of the second half, and Mingo got some help when Robitaille missed the net from 15 yards and Wilson hit the crossbar.

The Stags’ Elizabeth Somma nearly tied the game with 1:15 left, but the Rams caught another break when the ball hit the crossbar.

“It’s hard because we’ve come off games where we’ve been scoring five, six, seven goals to all of a sudden face a defense like that. And then you have to get really creative,” said Gorham coach Jeanne Zarrilli. “But I think you’ve got to stay in it for 80 minutes and just keep at it and hope to get that break.”

The break finally came 34:35 into the second half.

By that point, Zarrilli’s young team – there were four freshmen on the field for the majority of the game – had grown accustomed to playing in the pressure-packed playoff-like atmosphere.

“They’re learning to play in these big games with some composure. I think they did a really good job and they’ve been helped by the older kids who already have that composure,” said Zarilli.