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SOUTH BERWICK — Cheverus High’s young girls lacrosse team picked up a key win in a game between top Class A contenders, beating host Marshwood 13-12 on Tuesday.

Cheverus improved to 7-2. Marshwood slipped to 8-2.

Sophie St. John scored five goals and had two assists to lead the Stags’ attack, and scored the winning goal with a stroke early in the fourth quarter.

“We were coming off of our Scarborough loss, which was kind of not what we wanted, but we knew we had to come out and show them that we can play and we can beat them,” said St. John, the Stags’ senior captain.

Both teams understood that a win would help in terms of seeding. And both coaches view their team as among the short list that could be playing on the final day of the season — with No. 1 and unbeaten Kennebunk the clear top team in Class A. Marshwood is ranked fourth in the Varsity Maine Top 10, and Cheverus is eighth.

“This was huge. We’re going into a tough part of our season. We still have Kennebunk, Windham, so we’re glad we came out of here with a win,” said Cheverus coach Will Tuttle

Cheverus was sharp early, while Marshwood had an uncharacteristic amount of unforced turnovers. “We’re usually a four, five unforced turnovers a game team. We had that many or more in every quarter,” said Marshwood coach Bernie Marvin.

That led to Cheverus building an 8-3 lead late in the second quarter behind sharp shooting from St. John, Sydney Brunelle (four goals) and Sophia Tamulevich (two goals off St. John assists) and tenacious defense from the likes of Annie Vigue and Taylor Hoglund.

But shortly after Anna Jennings recovered a loose ball and fought through the Stags’ defense to score and cut the lead to 8-4, the game shifted dramatically.

Marshwood scored four man-up goals in the final 1:50 of the half, the first coming when Annabelle Renna accidentally flicked a blocked shot into her own Cheverus goal, which was credited to Madison Poitras (four goals), who then scored two on her own, with Sarah Theriault adding another to tie the game, 8-8.

The third quarter saw ties at 9-9 and 11-11, with Marshwood’s Eva Hersey — who got her 100th career point on an assist to Theriault — scoring twice for Marshwood and St. John getting two for Cheverus.

St. John gave Cheverus a 13-11 lead less than a minute into the fourth quarter — the third frame she opened the scoring.

Then it was Renna who turned in a critical sequence of three straight saves on Poitras shots, two of which were partially blocked by good stick checks. Theriault scored to cut the lead to one with 4:29 to play, but Cheverus was able to control possession for most of the rest of the game.

“There’s Kennebunk and then probably three or four other teams. We’re all in the mix. But, yeah, Cheverus is a good team,” Marvin said.