CAPE ELIZABETH – Play through the rain. That’s all the Cape Elizabeth boys’ soccer team could do.

Additional Photos

Paul Wennberg of Cape Elizabeth, left, provides a screen Wednesday night as a shot by teammate Blake Barritt skips through for a goal. Defending for Marshwood are goalie Jackson Towle, with Thomas Kent, 12, manning a post. Cape Elizabeth won 5-0 at home. John Patriquin/Staff Photographer

Tyler Hickey of Marshwood positions himself in front of Blake Barritt of Cape Elizabeth to unleash a header during the Capers' 5-0 victory in a Western Class A quarterfinal. John Patriquin/Staff Photographer

In a game marked by a heavy downpour midway through the first half, with high winds that blew umbrellas inside out and sent passes in different directions, the No. 3 Capers withstood the elements in a 5-0 win over No. 6 Marshwood in a Western Class A quarterfinal at Hannaford Field.

Tim Takach and Tim Lavallee each scored twice. And, Lavallee said, this wasn’t the worst weather the Capers had seen.

“You just have to play through it, no matter what conditions,” Lavallee said. “Luckily we’re blessed to have some turf, so it’s a lot easier to play than on grass. We played against Fryeburg earlier this season and it was probably raining twice as hard as this. It was brutal.”

Cape (10-3-2) will be at No. 2 Portland in a regional semifinal Saturday.

The Hawks (8-5-2) were unable to generate much offensive pressure against the Capers, who allowed six shots on goal.

“This isn’t a surface we play on that often,” Marshwood Coach Martyn Young said. “With the rain and everything, it’s just not something we’re used to, so the pace of the game caught us a little bit by surprise. We stayed with them for a long time but I thought we gave up a cheap goal at the start of the game. I think from that point on, it was going to be an uphill battle.”

The Capers took a 1-0 lead five minutes into the game on the first of Takach’s two goals. Delivered a crossing pass deep in Marshwood’s end, Takach used his head to redirect the ball past goalie Jackson Towle.

“I feel like after the first goal, that was big,” said Lavallee, whose team led 1-0 at halftime. “One of our problems is finishing, so after Timmy scored the first goal, it kind of got us relaxed and we were like, ‘All right, we’re up 1-0 now, and now we can just play our game.’

“We had the lead and we kept going, and we played it pretty well through the rest of the first half.”

the start of the second half, the rain had subsided and 10 minutes in, Lavallee scored his two goals in a span of less than four minutes — the first in the 50th minute and the second in the 53rd off a corner kick.

“Those goals were huge because it put the other team away,” Lavallee said. “It was 1-0 at the time and they could have come back, especially in this kind of weather.”

Takach gave Cape a 4-0 lead in the 65th minute, and six minutes later, Blake Barritt scored on a direct kick.

“In the second half, we just came out hard again and put them away,” Lavallee said.

Staff Writer Rachel Lenzi can be reached at 791-6415 or at:

rlenzi@pressherald.com