TOPSHAM

Ema Hawkes tallied three goals, including a late second half goal to seal the victory for Mt. Ararat as the Eagles downed Skowhegan, 4-2, in girls high school Kennebec Valley Athletic Conference soccer action on Friday.

It took only 30 seconds for the Eagles to get on the scoreboard when Hawkes scored on Mt. Ararat’s (1-0) first trip down the field.

“We wanted to come out and score as quick as we could,” Mt. Ararat coach Chad Kirk said. “It was great to see them working hard in the first half.”

Four minutes later, Eliza Libby struck again for the home team, giving the Eagles a 2-0 advantage when she headed the ball past Skowhegan keeper Amber Merry.

At the 35:47 mark, Skowhegan’s Sydney Ames blasted a loose ball in front of Mt. Ararat goalie Abby Sirois to the back of the net to get one back.

Hawkes and company responded, winning the ball at midfield with strong play by Heather Gallant. The ball was then sent to the right side of the field where Hawkes once again found paydirt, pushing the lead back to two goals, 3-1.

“It’s nice to see us respond when we got scored on to make it 2-1,” Kirk said. “We dominated the first half, keeping possession of the ball in the first 40 minutes.”

“We gave them too much slack in the first half,” Skowhegan coach Mike Herrick said. “We made too many mistakes early and it hurt us.”

With less than 10 minutes remaining in the half, Ames again was able to pick up a loose ball in front and put it in the net for the goal. The score remained 3-2 into the break despite Skowhegan holding a slight edge in shots, 7-5.

“I didn’t say too much to them when we fell behind by two goals again. I wanted to see how they would respond,” Herrick said.

Scoring slows

The second half consisted of a lot of back and forth, although each team had some opportunities.

Ten minutes into the half, Gallant sprinted across midfield, beating a Skowhegan defender to the ball. As Gallant possessed, she broke towards the net, trying to foot the ball between Merry and the right post, but was unable to convert.

The Indians had an opportunity of their own following a corner kick at the 13- minute mark. Once the ball was put into play, it was headed by a Skowhegan player, then off the head of a Mt. Ararat defender, and another Skowhegan midfielder before going out of bounds, resulting in a goal kick.

Hawkes sealed the victory with a tap up over the Skowhegan keeper for the final tally.

“When I see the ball, I just want to go at the goalie and put it in,” said the sophomore Hawkes. “It feels good to be out here on the soccer field. They had a tough defense today and we played well enough to win.”

“We made some adjustments to go for it at that point,” Herrick said. “I knew it was either going to be 3-3 or 4-2 as it was an aggressive move.”

From there, the Eagles were able to run down the clock for the victory.

Sirois turned away six shots, while Merry had five saves in net for the Indians. Skowhegan outshot the Eagles, 11-9.

“They’re a good team, they are going to get some wins and that’s good for us,” Kirk said. “Conditioning, we need to get in better shape, we got slower late. But I like the way we started and we got four goals. We’re in the mix.”

“I told the girls afterwards that we did a lot of things right in the second half,” Herrick said. “We will build on this.”

Mt. Ararat travels to Lewiston tonight for a match against the Blue Devils (7 p.m.) and to Edward Little on Friday at 3:30 p.m.