Jenna Soucy and Ciera Berthiaume combined to hand the Eagles a hard-fought, 2-0 victory in Portland Friday afternoon. In fact, it was perhaps a harder fight than Windham had expected, but they walked away triumphant nonetheless. For anyone who’s counting – and who isn’t? – that’s 29 games since the Eagles last lost, including 27 wins: They went 17-0-1 in 2013 to claim the Class A crown, and are 12-0-1 thus far this season.

“I would say it was pretty even,” said Windham head coach Deb Lebel of the first-half action versus the Bulldogs, whose defense – and in particular, their keeper, Taylor Crosby – kept them afloat. The Eagles generated 13 shots in those opening 40 minutes, and Crosby proved equal to them all.

On the other end of the field, Portland’s offense had less success, landing five shots, but failing to score.

“They had one girl up top, [Chesa Hoekstra], who was really fast. She worked her butt off,” Lebel said of the Bulldogs’ attack. “She kept the offense going for them. She didn’t give up on any balls.”

At the break, then, the score stood 0-0. Once the teams returned, though, it didn’t remain tied for long; the shots-on disparity in Windham’s favor finally overwhelmed the Portland defense, and Jenna Soucy scored, as Lebel described, “on a ball delivered out of the back by Katie Herzig.”

With roughly 11 minutes remaining, Berthiaume posted the Eagles’ second point, following fancy footwork to slip past multiple defenders. “I’d say Ciera had six shots that just went over,” Lebel said, “and that one finally fell.”

Lebel admitted imagining a bigger margin than 2-0, but also acknowledged, “We did know they were going to be stronger than some of our easier wins. We’d heard they had some pretty fast people up top.”

“But coming off Scarborough, maybe we were a little tired; our first touches weren’t as crisp as they had been. And we could send long balls into the corner, and on the turf it just goes out of bounds.” Whereas Windham High School has a real-grass field, Fitpatrick Stadium, home to the Bulldogs, is an artificial surface.

So what’s helped the Eagles chew through (most of) their opposition like so many delicious, scampering rabbits? Lebel points to several contributing factors, including, of course, talent. But beyond that, she highlights hard work, and commitment. Many of her girls play soccer outside the high school season – some of them play soccer all 12 months.

“These are really hardworking kids,” Lebel said. “This core of eight seniors are very talented. Most of them play year-round, and they’ve been pretty successful with their Seacoast team. That year-round play has given them some big-game experiences.”

For her part, Lebel encourages the girls to participate in multiple sports.

“I think you can gain so much from playing other sports,” she says, before underscoring the mental: the ability to dig deep, and to maintain one’s composure in high-stakes games.

Most of her girls have seen significant playing time during this school season as well, as Lebel kept smaller numbers than in past years. The experience has bolstered the girls’ confidence noticeably, she says.

Most of them have been playing soccer for ages and Lebel had the highest praise for the community’s youth programs. “I do think that’s contributed to our success,” she said, “the well-organized program, the great coaches. Next year, I think there’s two travel U14 teams – that’s a ton of numbers.”

And those eight seniors cycle through the captaining duties – Lebel says she couldn’t have narrowed the choices down to one or two if she’d wanted to – which has “given all of them a chance to be a leader…My first couple years, we named captains or let the team choose, and at times I found it kind of divided the team.”

And since their personalities overlap, the Eagles are an especially tight-knit bunch; those connections feed back into their soccer practice habits and game play.

“Another good thing is team chemistry,” Lebel said. “They’re friends on and off the field. They play so much together, they know where their teammates play the ball, they know their strengths, some of their weaknesses.”

Her girls’ hard work originates in their personalities. She points to the case of Melissa Morton, who’s battled back this year – after suffering a season-ending back injury in 2013 – to become one of the team’s top scorers.

“Melissa is that feisty one who gets right there and cleans up any ball in front of the net. She seems to find a way to get a foot on it.”

Soucy and Berthiaume are also among the team’s offensive leaders. On the defensive side, Lebel praises sweeper Jordan Sargent, stopper Shannon Valente and keeper Lizzie Mycock.

So even though the Eagles lost six critical seniors from last year’s State Championship roster, what remains appears to have developed into a squad at least as strong. But of course, being atop the heap means the competition will be looking to take them down.

“There’s definitely this desire to get back to where we finished last year,” Lebel said. “[But] we try to focus on just this one game ahead of us, and I really think this year we’re going to have to be careful – our playoffs bracket is going to be tough.”

Eagles junior Katie Herzig cleats the ball cross-field in last year’s State Championship battle with Bangor. Windham senior Hannah Haskell defends in the Eagles’ 7-0 victory over Westbrook earlier this season.