Heal point standings for high school soccer were finalized Wednesday by the Maine Principals’ Association, with three Central Maine sides locked in as No. 1 seeds in the upcoming regional tournaments.
The Hall-Dale boys in Class C South, the Richmond boys in Class D South and the Monmouth girls in Class C South will all try and hold form all the way to the state championship weekend on Nov. 15-16.
Both the Hall-Dale boys and Monmouth girls enter the postseason with undefeated records.
For the top-seeded Bulldogs (13-0-1), first-year head coach Jesse Rowe let his team find its own identity early in the season and the squad took off following a second-half rally for a draw against Monmouth on Sept. 21.
“They just played the game together, with a focus on playing their style together,” Rowe said. “They work well within that style. Each member of the team has kind of sacrificed just enough individually to make each other better.”
Class C South boasts wide-open fields on both the boys and girls sides.
The Monmouth boys go in at No. 2 with an identical 13-0-1 record as Hall-Dale, with reigning Class C state champion Waynflete at No. 3. Maranacook and Mt. Abram go in as the No. 4 and No. 5 seeds, respectively, and will meet in a highly-anticipated quarterfinal next Tuesday.
No. 8 Oak Hill will meet No. 9 St. Dominic on Friday in a prelim game, with the winner advancing to meet Hall-Dale.
The Monmouth girls (14-0-0) are the top seed in their bracket, but coach Gary Trafton is hardly taking anything for granted, particularly with Traip, Hall-Dale, reigning regional champion Maranacook, Oak Hill, Winthrop, Mt. Abram and Madison lined up behind the Mustangs at Nos. 2-8, respectively.
“In the playoffs, you’re not going to get 34 chances. You’re going to get two chances, and you have to make sure you cash them in,” Trafton said. “We don’t know (how good we are). We haven’t come up on a team with two really good, really big strikers yet. We’ll see those.”
In Class C North, the Mount View boys sit at No. 3 and will host Central in a quarterfinal next week. The Mustang girls finished at No. 7 and host Mattanawcook in a prelim Friday. Sumner is the No. 1 seed in the region in the boys field, while Fort Kent holds the top spot for the girls.
In Class B North, the Waterville girls (13-1-0) ride an 11-game winning streak into the postseason next week as the No. 2 seed in the region and will host either No. 7 Maine Central Institute or No. 10 Caribou in the quarterfinals.
“We had a stretch of seven or eight really tough games in a row,” Waterville coach Mark Serdjenian said. “I don’t think any of us knew how we’d emerge from that. I think what the team did a really good job of is we didn’t let the season slip away. We did a good job of taking one game at a time and focusing on that, not letting one game blend into another and slip away from us.”
The Purple Panthers, who allowed just seven goals in the regular season thanks to a back line of Emme Ayers, Allie Anich, Lauren Pinnette and Sophia Poole, slot in behind No. 1 Hermon (14-0-0), the team Waterville beat in the 2016 regional final when all of the current seniors were freshmen.
No. 6 Winslow will travel to No. 3 Mt. Desert Island in another quarterfinal. In B South, the Erskine girls got a tie in their regular season finale against Winslow to move them up to No. 3 in the region, and the Eagles host either No. 6 Medomak or No. 11 Leavitt in the quarterfinals. Cape Elizabeth is the leader in B South girls.
In Class B North boys, No. 2 Winslow (11-2-1) lines up for a Battle of the Bridge quarterfinal with No. 7 Waterville, should the Purple Panthers dispatch of Foxcroft in a prelim Friday. The other prelim in the region pits No. 8 MCI against No. 9 Lawrence.
Caribou (12-0-2) occupies the top spot in B North.
In B South, No. 6 Gardiner hosts No. 11 Fryeburg in a prelim. Unbeaten Yarmouth is the No. 1 seed in the region.
The Richmond boys (10-2-1) are once again the class of D South as the top seed, and the Bobcats will host either Buckfield or Piscataquis Community High School in the quarterfinals. The No. 5 Temple boys play at No. 4 Rangeley — the team they beat in overtime in the regular-season finale Tuesday — in next week’s regional quarterfinal.
The Richmond girls finished No. 2 behind No. 1 North Yarmouth Academy. The Bobcats lost only three times this season — twice to NYA — and will host Searsport in the quarterfinals. No. 4 Temple is on track to meet Richmond in a semifinal, should the Bereans get past Greenville in the semifinals. Rangeley enters the tournament at No. 3 and travels to Buckfield for its quarterfinals.
In Class A North, both Messalonskee teams are the fifth seed in their respective fields. The Eagle boys travel to meet Mt. Ararat next Tuesday in the quarterfinals, while the girls are off to Oxford Hills.
The Lewiston boys and Camden Hills girls are the No. 1 seeds in A North.
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