SACO — Lightning struck quickly on a brilliant blue-sky afternoon at Thornton Academy, Wednesday.

Two minutes later, it struck again.

The bolts out of nowhere were delivered, not by a muscular Norseman named Thor, but by Christine Kirby, a diminutive Golden Trojan.

Kirby’s two goals in rapid fashion helped lift Thornton to a 2-0 triumph over No. 9 seed Deering, in a Western Maine Class A preliminary round field hockey tilt.

The win earned No. 8 seed Thornton a quarterfinal round date with top-seeded (and undefeated) Scarborough, Saturday at 2 p.m.

“We’re so excited,” said Kirby, one of a host of Trojans honored on “Seniors Day”. “For a lot of us, it was going to be our last game on this field. We knew we didn’t want it (the season) to be over today. We’re going to be excited to see Scarborough on Saturday.”

Thornton’s survival until the weekend was no sure thing, at least through the first half.

The Trojans owned the field for large chunks of time, but created just a handful of dangerous scoring chances, and could put none of those past Deering netminder Caley Presby.

“We tend to take a long time to score,” said Thornton coach Lori Smith. “I don’t know why. We put lots of shots on goal. But following our shots is something we’ve had to work on.”

Even so, Kirby put her nose for the net to good use, twice in a span of 2:34

The first of those came 8:05 into the second half, when she hunted down a loose ball and slammed it into the back of the cage.

“n the first half,” said Kirby, “I missed a couple (chances), because I kept swinging at it. It was an elementary mistake. But (then) I just knew what to do. I wasn’t really thinking. It was impulse, I guess.”

Kirby had another impulse, and another goal, soon afterward, polishing off her own penalty corner restart with a redirection of a feed from Julie Swett.

“That’s how the play is supposed to work,” Kirby said. “I guess the practice paid off.”

In one short span, Smith rode an emotional roller coaster, from the uncertainty of a scoreless deadlock to the relief provided by a two-goal lead.

“I don’t ever feel comfortable,” Smith said, “until at least the second one goes in. Then I feel a little bit better.”

After that, the Thornton defense, anchored by netminder Zoe Colton (4 saves), buckled down and limited the Rams’ chances, guaranteeing the Trojans at least one more game.

“We love our team,” said Kirby, “we hang out together all the time. And we just have a great chemistry. A lot of us have played together since seventh grade. We weren’t ready to be done.”

— Contact Dan Hickling at dhickling@journaltribune.com.