The Cougars defeated visiting Southern Aroostook, 6-2, and will take on Machias — semifinal winner over Bangor Christian — for the regional title today in Stacyville at 1 p.m.
“Machias is a completely defensive-oriented team,” said Katahdin coach Matt Lindsay. “They have their best players on defense. Their entire strategy is to score the first goal of the game as quickly as they can and play defense the rest.”
With a potent offense, it may appear the Cougars are a complete contrast to the Bulldogs, but don’t be deceived, said Lindsay.
“Everyone has been concentrating so much on our offense that they forget my defense has only allowed 13 goals all season, including the playoffs,” he added.
Though the Cougars have outscored their opponents 80-plus to 12, Lindsay is quick to say his offense has done an exceptional job this year, but if it wasn’t for their defense “we wouldn’t have been in most of the games. They are just incredible.”
“You don’t hear much about defensive people,” he said. “My defense is as good as any defense we will ever play. It’s awesome to have them because my offense plays against them almost every practice. It’s possible, but unlikely that, we will ever play against a defense that is as good as ours. All around, we have speed, we have skill and we have an ability to read. All of them are the complete package when it comes to a soccer player.”
The Warriors end their season at 10-6-1.
The game was closer than the score indicated early in the first half. The Cougars’ Kolby Gallagher crossed the ball in front of the net and Ethan Qualey headed in the opening goal. Then Billy Duffy added a second one when he went to cross the ball, and according to Lindsay, “had a very lucky mis-strike,” and the wind lifted it up over Southern Aroostook goalie Dillon Boulier, who was playing just outside the six-yard line, carrying the ball under the crossbar.
“It was a beautiful shot,” said Lindsay.
With the Warriors trailing 2-0, they closed the scoring gap when Stephen Grant connected for a goal. But, it would be a dry spell before Southern Aroostook would crack the net again.
The Cougars pressed the Warrior defense early and often in Saturday’s Eastern Maine semifinal game, and continued to attack racking up four more first-half goals to take a 6-1 halftime lead.
“We’ve been concentrating a lot more on our passing game, and our angle of attacks, working real hard in practice to get those right, and fortunately on Saturday, it was working for us,” said Lindsay.
Katahdin’s third goal was Duffy’s second one of the game. The ball was rolling toward the net, as SACS’ goalie Boulier came out to retrieve it, Duffy challenged him on the play, and after Duffy slid in, the ball deflected off Boulier and Duffy was there to bang it in.
The Cougars’ next score came when Marshall Davis controlled the ball at the 18-yard line. He made a quick turn and drilled the ball into the side of the twine. Davis set up Katahdin’s fifth goal when he crossed the ball right in front of the net to Qualey, who caught Boulier leaning and tapped the ball in for his second goal of the game. Qualey rounded out the scoring for a hat trick.
“We played an extremely good first half,” Lindsay said. “Southern Aroostook has always been a second half team, that’s when they play their best soccer. We were expecting them to be a lot better in the second half than they were.”
The Warriors held the Cougars scoreless in the second half and Southern Aroostook had more scoring chances in the second half, but could only get one more when Dakota Sleeper scored. The Warriors couldn’t make enough runs to overcome the early deficit.
Katahdin goalie Matt Tarr blocked eight of 16 shots faced, while SACS’ netkeeper Boulier set back 20 of 31 shots.
In the semifinal round, the Cougars shut out visiting Fort Fairfield, 3-0.
Katahdin’s Duffy scored on a Gallagher assist with 29:50 left in the game to break a scoreless first half. Then Duffy returned the favor to Gallagher, who put the ball in the back of the net with 4:27 left in the contest. Mickey Savage rounded out the scoring on a penalty kick.
Katahdin goalie Tarr had two saves on three shots faced.
For Fort Fairfield, goalie Austin Dufour rejected 13 of 24 shot attempts.
The Warriors had just as close of a matchup in their semifinal game, as they defeated host Easton, 2-1.
With time winding down and looking like overtime, Southern Aroostook’s Tyler Robinson hit the game-winning goal with 33 seconds left. Sleeper gave Southern Aroostook a 1-0 lead with 30:14 left in the second half.
SACS’ Boulier had eight saves on 10 shots.
Easton’s Brad Trask knotted the game on a penalty kick with 4:01 left in regulation. Goalie Cody Thompson set back eight of 12 shots.
