The North Yarmouth Academy boys’ soccer team didn’t just have to count on a late-season surge to qualify for the Western Class C playoffs.

The Panthers, who earned the region’s eighth seed, also had to endure an up-and-down season. They were shut out four times and had to play in front of a goalie who never played soccer before.

“It’s been a tough season as far as things going wrong but they’ve learned from it,” Coach Martyn Keen said.

The boys’ soccer playoffs in all four classes opened Tuesday with No. 3 Waynflete beating No. 6 Mt. Abram 4-0 in Class C. NYA (7-5-1) earned the final seed in the class and will play at 6 tonight at top-ranked Wiscasset (13-0-1).

“Wiscasset is a good team and heavily laden with seniors,” Keen said. “This is their chance for a state title. But I don’t think we’re the stereotypical eighth seed. We have the potential to play well. This season it’s been feast or famine for us. We’ve either won games and scored goals or we’ve been shut out.”

The Panthers lost two goalies — Jesse Holland and Jordan Haskell — in the first month of the season, and goalie Ryan Salerno made his first varsity start Sept. 27 in a 1-0 loss to Yarmouth, the top-ranked team in Western Class B.

“He pretty much volunteered to try it,” Keen said of Salerno. “He’d never played soccer before coming to NYA.”

The Panthers were 3-5 entering the second week of October but finished the regular season unbeaten in their final five games (4-0-1).

“We’re ready to go,” Keen said. “I don’t think any Mountain Valley Conference team really relishes playing a Western Maine Conference team. We get to play some tough teams. Our goal is to get in, and once we get in we hope to be competitive. We’re going in as a huge underdog.”

KENNEBUNK, THE No. 8 seed in Western Class A, continues the postseason today against top-ranked Scarborough, the two-time defending state champion.

“The road through the playoffs goes through Scarborough right now and it has for the past couple of years,” Kennebunk Coach Nathan Bean said. “They’re the favorite until someone beats them, and we’re privileged to face them. We think we have a chance to be competitive.”

The Rams (9-4-2) defeated No. 9 Windham 1-0 on Saturday in a preliminary game, and will play the Red Storm (12-2) at 5 p.m. today in a quarterfinal, the opening game of a soccer doubleheader at Mitchell Sports Complex. The Scarborough girls will meet Cape Elizabeth in a regional quarterfinal at 7.

“They have home field and we’re looking at it as a nice opportunity to play in a quality situation,” Bean said.

The Rams earned the eighth – and final – playoff spot in Western Class A after a season in which they opened 4-1 but went 1-3-1 from Sept. 21 to Oct. 5, including a 3-0 loss Oct. 3 at Scarborough.

Notable teams that didn’t make the Class A playoffs? Deering, Westbrook and Greely.

“We’re at a point where we set a goal of a playoff appearance every year,” Bean said. “It’s very competitive with only 50 percent of the teams getting in.”

Staff Writer Rachel Lenzi can be reached at 791-6415 or at: rlenzi@pressherald.com