BUCKFIELD — It was a tale of two halves between the Buckfield Bucks and Searsport Vikings in their Western Class D boys’ soccer semifinal game Saturday afternoon.
The first half saw both teams score, with Buckfield having the advantage in shots 12-10. In the second half, Sidney Jackson scored twice to give the Bucks a 3-1 victory and a trip to the Western Class D regional finals on Wednesday — their first trip since 1993.
They will now head to Richmond to face the Bobcats.
“We played very well in the first half and we got off to a good start,” Buckfield coach Kyle Rines said. “I knew that was going to be key for us. Searsport is a tough team. They battle well. It was very close game. A lot of it came from us digging deep and getting that win that we needed.”
This was the Vikings’ first trip to the playoffs in just a little over a decade, and its roster featured only three seniors.
“It’s the fist time since 2003,” Searsport coach John Frye said. “We started six freshman. We will be back around. We will take our lumps and get better I hope.”
The scoring started just 3:37 into the game when Buckfield’s Ethan Jackson found Jonathan Randolph, who fired from 18 yards out on the left side of the box.
Buckfield’s lead didn’t last long after Connor Kneeland’s corner kick from the left corner bounced off Buckfield’s goalie Calvin Downey’s hands and into the net at the 7:22 mark of the first half.
Both teams settled down after the two goals but continued to push the pace offensively. Downey, along with Searsport goaltender Ben Powel, each had to make diving saves and knocked a couple of balls over the crossbar.
Frye believed it took the teams 10 minutes to settle down due to his team’s two-hour bus ride and the damp the weather conditions.
Despite the damp conditions, both teams decided a five-minute halftime would suffice.
Like the first half, there was another round of back-and-forth action in the second. The tide turned in Buckfield’s (13-3) favor 15:28 into the half when Randolph kicked the ball at the net and Sidney Jackson put home the rebound.
The wheels came off the wagon for Searsport (13-3) after that goal. The Vikings received two yellow cards in a four-minute span. The first card came at the 20:34 mark when Jay Burkard got a card. With 16:28 remaining, Liam MacMillan was also carded, and both players were sent off for 10 minutes.
“After they got the goal, we lost some of our composure,” Frye said. “We respond like a team that hasn’t been in the playoffs for (11) years. We aren’t used to that atmosphere. We stopped playing for a few minutes and that cost us.”
Dean Evans was also given a yellow card in the final minutes of the game.
Rines told his kids to keep calm when the game got a little physical.
“One of our big things is always play with character,” Rines said. “It’s tough to do when your team is getting throttled on sometimes. We responded and Sidney (Jackson) scored two big goals, and that’s the story of the game.”
Jackson picked up his second goal a minute after MacMillian was sent off to give the Bucks a cushion. The Bucks outshot the Vikings 12-6 in the second half.
“The second half, we really got it going. One of our players got really injured. We all had a reason to fight,” Jackson said of Ethan Jackson getting injured earlier in the half. “We all went forward with (the game.) I think we played really hard as we could in this game.”
Ethan Jackson did return to the game.
Searsport had an offensive spark when Burkard returned to the game, but Searsport didn’t haven any scoring chances in the final minutes.
nfournier@sunjournal.com
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