BRUNSWICK

The Mt. Ararat High School girls lacrosse team didn’t have much to lose.

Down by four goals at the half in Saturday’s “Battle of the Bridge” game against rival Brunswick, the Eagles had 25 more minutes to show the Dragons what they were made of. The Class A North playoffs were out of reach and in the second-to-last game of the season, Mt. Ararat put it all on the line.

Emily Welch and Jessica Cloutier scored twice each in the second half as the visitors dominated possession and put the pressure on with five of six goals in the middle of the frame. Brunswick was on its heels, but a late timeout slowed things down and one long spell of passing killed the game off.

For Mt. Ararat coach Samantha Diamond, the 10-7 Kennebec Valley Athletic Conference defeat ended about as well as it could have.

“The rivalry between us speaks for itself,” Diamond said. “The kids were able to get themselves excited. The beginning of the game was kind of a shock, to go down five goals immediately. They came back and they have so much to be proud of in today’s game.”

The Brunswick (4-6) five-goal spurt started early, with Jenna Brooks leaping up to snag a Rian Sachs pass and finish in front of goal at 22:38. Anna Davis converted a free-position chance a minute-and-a-half later and then a two-minute Mt. Ararat (2-9) penalty proved costly. Dina Murphy sandwiched a Colleen McKearney score (19:06) with a pair of unassisted goals at 18:38 and 19:33 and it was 5-0 before the penalty expired.

“We didn’t settle into the game until after those five goals,” Diamond said. “Called timeout and I feel like we kind of settled down. It’s always exciting when we play Brunswick, so the kids were nervous.”

Welch finally got the Eagles on the board with a free-position goal at 11:32 and then scored again on a run-in at 10:41 to make the score 5-2. Jenna Brooks responded with another Dragons’ finish late in the first frame, though, and in the final seconds, Welch had a shot stopped my Mikaela Aschbrenner. When Brooks found Davis on a wide-open long pass just 23 seconds into the second half, the game looked out of reach at 7-2.

Then Murphy scored again.

“Dina was key at both ends,” Brunswick coach Dave Boucher said. “Getting a goal or two and also winning a lot of ground balls. Anna Webster must have won six or seven ground balls herself. She played great and they had a couple of really nice fast-forwards, made some nice shots. We spread out the scoring quite a bit today.”

“Dina’s a great player,” Sachs said. “She’s is a really great team player. She doesn’t take it for herself or shoot it every time. She’s really good at finding the open shots and slowing it down if she’s not open.”

Draw, keep the ball

After Murphy’s goal, in the blink of an eye, Mt. Ararat started winning draw controls and racing down the field. Welch completed her hat trick at 19:19 and Jessica Cloutier ripped one in across Aschbrenner at 15:59 to make the score 8- 4. Less than a minute later, a fourth score from Welch sparked calls of “We’re still in this, Blue, let’s go!” from the midfield.

This was the second gear the Eagles needed.

“As we won the draw, we were able to maintain possession of the ball and then create the opportunities we needed to capitalize,” Diamond said.

Davis made it three and briefly broke the momentum swing with a free-position goal at 13:24, but Cloutier and Anna Manuel promptly added two more for Mt. Ararat and suddenly the lead was just two.

“Every game this season, we’ve had a second-half slump,” Sachs said. “Which has become a downer for us, but once we realized that they were coming back, we really stepped it up and got the game back in our hands.”

It started with a timeout with about five minutes left, when the Dragons were on a penalty and simply needed to take a breath.

“We knew we had a man down so we had to wait like a minute-and-a-half and we did a really good job settling the ball and keeping it.”

“Just don’t rush it,” Boucher said. “We had a two-goal lead. Move it around and they didn’t press us much. Our players did well moving around. We were a man down, so we killed that penalty. The players came through.”

Brunswick passed the ball around for a good two minutes, killing clock, and Emily Coffin iced the game with a falling-over goal at 1:39. The Dragons finished with 16 shots and forced five saves of Mt. Ararat’s Casi Perow in the cage. Aschbrenner faced 20 shots and made 11 saves.

Welch managed a game-high four goals for the Eagles, which won 7-of-9 draw controls in the second half.

“Emily’s been an on-field and off-field leader,” Diamond said. “She’s our go-to all the time. She sees the game and knows where to play it and who to play. Even when you think there’s nothing there, she just makes it happen. She’s been a huge, huge part of our program.”

It was a much-needed win for Brunswick, which had lost five games in a row before Saturday.

“We started strong, hit some strong teams, had some close games,” Boucher said. “We want to finish strong these last three going into the playoffs. Right now we’re fifth, and we think we can move to fourth or third if we win out.”

The Dragons will visit Edward Little today at 4 p.m. and close with Oxford Hills at home on Thursday (5:30 p.m.).

Brunswick 10,
Mt. Ararat 7

Saturday at Brunswick High School
Mt. Ararat — 2 5 — 7
Brunswick — 6 4 — 10
Goals — (MtA) Emily Welch 4, Jessica Cloutier 2, Anna Manuel; (B) Jenna
Brooks 2, Anna Davis 3, Dina Murphy
3, Colleen McKearney, Emily Coffin.
Assists — (MtA) Shannon Harty,
Emily Welch, Fiona Hoang; (B) Rian
Sachs 2, Dina Murphy, Lila Solberg,
Jenna Brooks 2.
Shots — Mt. Ararat 20, Brunswick
16.
Saves — (MtA) Casi Perow 5; (B)
Mikaela Aschbrenner 11.
Draw controls — Brunswick 10, Mt.
Ararat 9.
Records — Brunswick 4-6, Mt.
Ararat 2-9.
Up next for the Eagles — Wednesday at Lewiston, 5:30 p.m.
Up next for the Dragons — Today at
Edward Little, 4 p.m.