Scarborough’s offense awakens to win at Falmouth in finale

Scarborough senior Grace Pettingill and Falmouth senior Allie Cunningham look to head the ball during the Red Storm’s 3-0 victory Monday.

FALMOUTH—At the midpoint point of the 2020 season, Scarborough’s girls’ soccer team had an unaccustomed record of 1-3-1 and even more surprisingly, hadn’t been able to generate much offense.

The Red Storm always return to form, however, and Monday evening at Falmouth, they capped a season-ending surge with a first half offensive explosion.

It took all of two minutes, 24 seconds for sophomore Ali Mokriski to set up senior Abby Drapeau for the only goal Scarborough would need.

Mokriski, who was one of the state’s premier goal scorers at a freshman, but who was frustrated much of the 2020 season, then did her part, reminding everyone why she has no peer as a finisher in space, converting feeds from senior Grace Pettingill twice in a three-minute span to open it up.

The Red Storm held a 3-0 lead at halftime and held the Yachtsmen in check the final 40 minutes to finish the season in victorious style.

Scarborough ended on a five-game win streak to finish 6-3-1 and in the process, ended Falmouth’s season at 4-4-2.

“The way we attacked the first 20 minutes, we haven’t done that all year,” said Red Storm coach Mike Farley. “It was pretty. We played the ball one-two touch, opening up space and attacking that space. That’s what we were capable of doing. It was nice to have that at the end of the year.”

Farewell, 2020

Falmouth and Scarborough would have been in contention for big things this fall if it were a normal season, but due to COVID-19, teams were limited to a maximum of 10 contests with no postseason.

Regardless, the Red Storm and Yachtsmen have enjoyed some memorable moments as they were able to play their seasons to completion.

Scarborough, the three-time Class A South champions, opened with a 2-1 win at Bonny Eagle, then settled for a scoreless home tie versus Gorham before losing, 1-0, at Gorham, 2-0 at home to two-time Class B champion Cape Elizabeth and 4-0 at Cape Elizabeth. Scarborough got back in the win column, 2-0, at home over Bonny Eagle, then defeated visiting South Portland (2-0), host Falmouth (1-0) and visiting Thornton Academy (3-1).

Falmouth, meanwhile, started with a 1-0 victory at Yarmouth, then defeated visiting Greely (5-1). After falling at Cape Elizabeth (4-0), the Yachtsmen sandwiched ties versus visiting Brunswick (1-1) and host Greely (2-2) around a 2-0 home wni over Yarmouth. After dropping a 1-0 home decision to Scarborough, Falmouth defeated host Gorham, 1-0, last Thursday.

In the teams’ first meeting, Nov. 2, Mokriski scored for the Red Storm, who improved to 6-0 all-time versus the Yachtsmen (see below, for previous results).

Monday, on a pleasant 54-degree evening, Mokriski was involved in all three goals and Scarborough stayed perfect against Falmouth while completing its season in positive fashion.

Mokriski had the game’s first shot, in the second minute, but it was saved by Yachtsmen goalkeeper Jordan Wolf.

Then, with 37:36 to play in the first half, Mokriski set up Drapeau, who ripped a left-footed shot into the upper 90 for a 1-0 lead.

Falmouth had a couple chances to answer, but a serve from Abbie Ford to Lexi Bugbee was just out of reach and a corner kick was cleared by the Red Storm’s defense.

After Scarborough had shots from freshman Lana Djuranovic and Drapeau saved by Wolf, Wolf dove to rob Mokriski, but with 22:18 to go in the first half, Pettingill sent a beautiful ball ahead to Mokriski, who raced in and shot low past Wolf to make it 2-0.

“Grace just knows the game so well,” Mokriski said. “I’ll make a run and she’ll know where to put the ball. We have really good chemistry.”

After Red Storm junior goalkeeper Savannah Beaulieu snared a Falmouth corner kick, Mokriski struck again with 19:22 on the first half clock, again getting a pass from Pettingill and this time fighting through a defender before burying a low shot for a 3-0 advantage.

“I was putting way too much pressure on myself earlier this year,” Mokriski said. “I just told myself to focus and play my game and keep a positive attitude. It wasn’t me, honestly. It was the midfielders. They always get me the right ball. They had the hard job, I just had to make the right run.”

“Ali needed a game or two to get some rhythm and once she did, you saw what she did tonight,” Farley said. “If we continued on, she’d probably score 20 goals again.”

Falmouth coach Andrew Pelletier, who has coached Mokriski in premier soccer, could only shake his head in admiration.

“Ali’s phenomenal,” said Pelletier. “She’s just an incredible kid. She loves playing us I know that. I’ve been able to work with her a few years and she just does everything really well. She’s very difficult to contain and if she gets space, forget it.”

After Wolf dove to deny Djuranovic and Djuranovic missed wide, Mokriski’s bid for a hat trick was saved by Wolf and Scarborough took a 3-0 lead to halftime.

In the first half, the Red Storm enjoyed a 9-1 advantage in shots on frame. The Yachtsmen took all three of the half’s corner kicks, but had nothing to show for it.

Neither team scored in the second half, but there were chances each way.

Prior to the sanitation break, Bugbee shot just high on a free kick from just outside the box, Beaulieu saved a shot from Allie Cunningham and a rising shot from Bugbee was saved by a lunging Beaulieu, while at the other end, Wolf saved a pair of shots from Pettingill and senior Paige Spooner missed wide,

With 12:20 left, Falmouth took its final shot, but Bugbee’s bid was saved by Beaulieu.

Down the stretch, Wolf robbed Pettingill point blank, then saved shots by Spooner, senior Olivia Martell and Mokriski.

Scarborough ran out the clock from there and celebrated its 3-0 victory.

“We really just needed to play together and get used to each other,” Mokriski said. “It was hard because we had a limited number of games. I really wish we had playoffs since we’ve been improving a lot. More games would have been amazing.”

“Having this be our last our memory, I’m really proud,” Farley said. “It’s been a tough season, but to finish on a performance like that, it speaks well of the kids and how well and how hard they played together.

“We’d typically be in week three or four right now. We’ve made such big strides the past few games. I’d hate to be playing us in the playoffs if this was a normal year. We were just getting into a groove. Not just the way we attacked, but as a group, we were defending well, smothering teams.

“Our schedule early in the year was tough, but we gutted it out. It’s too bad it’s got to end right now. I wish we had Cape and Gorham spaced out more. When we played them, we hadn’t had much time practicing together. The seniors and the rest of the team didn’t complain and just did what we asked them to do. We had to deal with things we haven’t seen before.”

Scarborough finished with a 16-5 advantage in shots on frame and got five saves from Beaulieu.

Falmouth got 13 saves from Wolf and had a 4-1 edge in corner kicks, but couldn’t get the ball in the net.

“The first 20 minutes, (the Red Storm) were very, very good,” Pelletier said. “That’s probably the best I’ve seen them play and it was the worst we played. What we’ve been missing for four years is a girl who can score 15, 20 goals. They have that.

“In my opinion, we were very good all year. We played really well in every single game other than this one. Scarborough played phenomenal. Considering the schools we played against, everything went really, really well.”

On to 2021

Both teams will lose some key contributors, but figure to be right back in the title mix next autumn.

“It’s been a pleasure coaching this group of seniors,” Pelleiter said. “I’ve had five girls start for me since freshman year. Devin (Quinn), Lexi, Izzy (Dyer), Maggie (O’Brien) and Allie Cunningham. They have played at least 14 games every single year, plus playoffs. They haven’t had many breaks from me.

“We lose a lot, but we bring back a lot of talented players and a lot of girls who can step into important positions. It’ll be new next year. It won’t be a rebuilding year. We’ll be competitive, but it will take us a little time to figure it out.”

“I think we’ll be good next year,” said Mokriski. “We had a lot of younger girls play this year. We just have to get back at it in summer soccer and hope we have a normal year next year.”

“We lose some key players, but our freshman class was very good this year,” Farley said. “Those kids will step in next year. We have other players who have another year. We always have really good players and hopefully we’ll get a full summer together and build that into a season.”