KENNEBUNK — The Kennebunk girls lacrosse team is coming off back-to-back state championships, but the Rams still had something to prove in 2018.
The Rams, who won both titles in Class B, entered the world of Class A lacrosse this season and there was another team looking to defend their state crown — the 2017 Class A champion Massabesic Mustangs.
Those two teams would meet on Thursday evening and it would be the host Rams taking round one of what could be a two-round fight with a 7-6 victory over Massabesic in a Class A South showdown.
“You know I didn’t really know,” said Kennebunk coach Annie Barker on how her team would handle the Class A schedule. “Our philosophy is to take it one at a time and see where we can go and just keep on building. Like we told the kids at the beginning, we’ve got to climb that mountain. We’ll go one step at a time and see where we go.”
The Rams took a major step up the Class A mountain on Thursday.
“It feels great coming into a different class. We’ve never really played some of these teams that we’re going up against so it’s amazing to come in and do well,” said Kennebunk senior Erin Gorton, who scored three times and dished out one assist in the win.
Kennebunk took a 1-0 lead just over a minute into the game when freshman Emily Archibald took a pass from Gorton and scored.
Massabesic answered with a score from Morgan Pike just over three minutes later, and Madi Drain gave the Mustangs a 2-1 lead with under 20 minutes left in the first half.

Gorton tied things up with her first goal at the 18:32 mark and Hallie Schwartzman put the Rams back in front 3-2 with a score four minutes later.
Lily Schwartzman and Liz Kiezulas would make it four straight goals for Kennebunk as they put the Rams up 5-2 with 12:38 left in the opening half.
The Mustangs fought back with back-to-back goals from Skylar Renaud to cut the Kennebunk lead to 5-4 at halftime.
Gorton scored two straight goals to open the second half which put the Rams up 7-4 with 20:31 remaining in regulation.
Massabesic once again answered the call as Logan Champlin scored at the 16:08 mark and Renaud scored her third goal just under five minutes later to cut the lead to 7-6.
The Rams (10-0) were able to control possession for most of the remaining 11 minutes, but the Mustangs forced a Kennebunk turnover with just over two minutes left to give themselves one last chance.
Massabesic earned a free-position shot with just 17 seconds left — and Kennebunk goalie Haley Moody, who was impressive in the cage all night, would have to step up one last time.
Moody would get the job done as she stopped a hard shot and secured the victory for the Rams.
“I was just thinking ‘stop this and we have the game,’” said Moody. “That was all that was going through my mind. I knew they were shooting well all game, and I was close on a lot of them so to get that last one when we desperately needed it, felt amazing.”
The Kennebunk goalie, who is in her first year as a varsity starter, gave plenty of credit to her defense.
“The defense is incredible. They limit the shots so much and that’s what really helps us. I mean I didn’t have that many saves, but our defense limiting shots just sealed the deal,” Moody said.
Moody has been stepping up all year for the undefeated Rams — and that hasn’t gone unnoticed by her coaches or teammates.
“She’s an amazing asset to have,” said Gorton on Moody. “It’s great to have a goalie that we can rely on if mistakes do happen throughout the whole entire field. It’s great to have that asset back there to help us out.”
“She’s been huge for our team. She’s a rock in the cage,” added Barker.
Massabesic coach Brooks Bowen wasn’t surprised to see the game come down to the wire.
“It wasn’t that many years ago, historically, this was a one-goal game, year in and year out,” said Bowen. “They know each other very well. They’re well coached. They’ve got a great scheme and we felt like we had a great scheme and in the end it becomes a one-goal game.”
Bowen felt like his team definitely left some chances on the table against the Rams.
“It’s one possession. When you look back over the course of 50 minutes you don’t know which possession it was. If we took care of the ball a little bit better and created another opportunity or two maybe we swing it the other way,” Bowen said.
Barker’s gameplan going into Thursday’s showdown was to grab a lead and slow down the tempo on the usually fast-paced Mustangs.
“We knew it would be a tough game, head-to-head. We were hoping that we would go ahead and be able to stay ahead … because we knew then we could take time off the clock and just possess the ball,” said Barker. “That’s the game we’ve been teaching right now. If we’ve got the ball, ‘guys, we don’t need to take the shot unless it’s really a perfect shot.’”
Gorton was thrilled to get a victory against a powerhouse program like Massabesic.
“They’re an amazing team so going into this we had to prepare a lot and our coaches helped us do so in practice and just getting our minds ready for this insanely huge game against an amazing team,” said Gorton.
The Mustangs drop to 10-1 with the setback at Kennebunk, but Bowen is hoping his team will learn from the loss and earn another shot against the Rams.
“Let’s hope we’re back here in a couple weeks. We have a couple games to take care of between now and then and we hope to get back here,” Bowen said.
— Sports Editor Pat McDonald can be reached at pmcdonald@journaltribune.com or at 282-1535 ext. 322. Follow the Journal Tribune Sports Department on Twitter @JournalTsports.