GORHAM – It was wet, windy and nearly a wash out, but even the weather couldn’t put a damper on the Gorham girls soccer team’s offense Tuesday.

The Rams scored less than two minutes into the game and added three more in a six-minute span in the second to beat Bonny Eagle 5-0. Playing their technical game in the rain could have been a problem on the soaked field, and the conditions were on the Rams’ minds warming up.

“In the beginning, it’s always a little nerve-wracking because no one wants to get hurt and things like that,” Gorham midfielder Kali St. Germain said. “But once you get out there, as long as you’re not slipping or sliding too much, it’s fun.”

If she was a bit nervous early on, St. Germain didn’t show it. Less than two minutes in she received the ball down the left side, beat a defender in the corner and crossed it back to Meghan Cushing, who finished the move with a shot from the top of the 18-yard box for a 1-0 lead.

“Coach [Jeanne] Zarrilli always wants us to get a goal in the first few minutes so that it sets a tempo for the game, and we haven’t been doing that as much,” St. Germain said. “But after our first goal we definitely took a break, which we shouldn’t have.”

Instead of sending Gorham on its way, the opener seemed to put the Rams into a daze as Bonny Eagle came more into the game as the first half progressed. Even though they were outshot 11-2, the Scots hung tough and the rest of the half was played to a draw.

“(Coach) basically just told us we haven’t been doing anything we’ve been doing in practice and I think all of us really knew it,” St. Germain said. “But we just needed somebody to tell us that we needed to step it up because we got really lackadaisical, and I think we all just needed to put a few more in.”

Put a few more in they did, and once again St. Germain was the catalyst. Eight minutes into the second the senior received the ball to her feet inside the Bonny Eagle box, swiveled and put a low shot in on goal. Scots keeper Ivory McDonough made a sprawling stop to paw it away, but only right into the path of Kate Hopkins for an easy tap-in and 2-0 lead.

“She’s very creative,” Zarrilli said of St. Germain. “She’s an excellent player and she never stops working for 80 minutes, She’s always looking for the angles, she sees the field really well and she’s unselfish. She can get in and score and she’s our leading scorer right now, but she will also give the ball to anybody else whose making a run too.”

Unlike in the first half, this time Gorham didn’t let up after the quick strike. Cushing grabbed her second score five minutes later on another shot from the top of the box, and a minute later St. Germain got her name on to the score sheet for the Rams’ third goal in less than five minutes.

“We had a great first half, the girls were following through on their assignments. We’ve been very specific this year on our position play in our tactical game,” Bonny Eagle coach Ed Taylor said. “Second half, quite frankly, we fell apart for about 10 minutes and they put three in in a hurry, and then we found our shape and our structure again.”

With 15:57 left, Emily Deluca scored from a tight angle to make it 5-0, and Zarrilli had the second-half performance she was looking for.

“First half, I didn’t think we were on our game,” Zarrilli said. “We were just like, ‘Oh we can relax’ and I think we were relaxed a little too much, and whenever you let a team stay in when you’re only one goal ahead they start getting more excited, so you have to put it away early.

“Second half we were on it a lot better. We sort of settled into the conditions and the field. I think we just got our concentration back and we knew it was time to settle in and focus. I think we lost a little of that in the first half.”

After starting 1-2 with tough losses to Scarborough and Windham, Gorham has won three straight games and are gaining the poise and self-assurance Zarrilli hoped her squad, featuring seven new starters, would build up as September progressed.

“I definitely think we’re getting more confident,” St. Germain said. “Except we’re still not forgetting those (losses) and we’re just preparing for the next time we see them.”

On the other side, the loss drops Bonny Eagle to 1-6 on the year, though Taylor said he’s seen plenty of improvement in the opening part of the fall. After playing traditional power Gorham tough for 70 or so minutes, and with the meat of their schedule behind them, the Scots could be primed to make a run in the second half of the season.

“We’ve had some ups and downs,” Taylor said. “There’s been some games I think we could have won and there’s some games you go in hoping you do well. The games where we have hoped to do well we have done well, and some of the games I thought we should have won we didn’t follow through.

“If we could have had some of those chances we had today in some of those other games I think we would have been a little more successful. But I still think with the schedule we have coming up we’ll be fine. With the work we’ve done this year, the specific improvements that we’ve seen we are very pleased with.”

Gorham midfielder Kali St. Germain and Bonny Eagle defender Abby Cates contest for the ball in the second half. (Staff photos by Cameron Dunbar)
Gorham forward Kate Hopkins dribbles the ball into the Bonny Eagle half early in the second half Tuesday. Hopkins scored Gorham’s second goal as the Rams beat the Scots 5-0.
Gorham midfielder Kali St. Germain puts a shot on the Bonny Eagle goal early in the second half. The shot resulted in a rebound goal for Kate Hopkins as the Rams went on the beat the Scots 5-0.
Gorham midfielder Megan Cushing drives the ball into the Bonny Eagle half as Scots defender Haleigh Libby tries to stop her in the second half. Cushing scored Gorham’s first and third goals as the Rams beat the Scots 5-0.