BUCKFIELD — Wednesday’s Mountain Valley Conference showdown between Mt. Abram and Buckfield had all the earmarks of a girls soccer game destined for double overtime.
A scoreless first half and missed scoring opportunities in the second for both teams led to a 1-1 tie after the Roadrunners (5-2-1) and the Bucks (6-3-1) couldn’t settle their differences.
Mt. Abram coach Andrew Delcourt preferred a victory instead of a 1-1 compromise, especially after the Roadrunners dominated the first half.
“Good ball movement, but just couldn’t finish,” Delcourt said.
He added that the second half was a different story for the Roadrunners due to injuries.
“I had to put some younger ladies in there,” Delcourt said. “(The Bucks) poured it on in the second half.”
The tie didn’t sit easy with Delcourt, either.
“It bugs me,” he said. “I don’t like to tie. We would like to walk away with a ‘W.’ It is a tough place to play and Larry Thornton is a very, very good coach (for Buckfield).”
Mt. Abram co-captain and senior striker Daisy Gusler put the Roadrunners out in front with her goal 7:42 into the second half. Gusler thought Mt. Abram’s goal would hold up the rest of the half.
“(The Bucks) are a good team. I enjoy playing them,” she said. “Good performance (from us). We were a little off at the end because so many players got taken out.”
But less than two minutes later, the Bucks’ Cora Brewster sent a corner kick toward the Mt. Abram net, where the ball bounced off one of the Roadrunner players for an own goal to tie the game.
Two five-minute, sudden-victory overtimes did nothing to produce a winner of the contest.
“I think we played hard today,” Buckfield sophomore midfielder Annabelle Thone said. “We played ‘Buckfield tough’ and we played the way we know how. We played really hard and I am proud of us.”
But it was indeed a game of two halves, with the Roadrunners taking command in the first half. The second half was more physical and this took a toll on both sides.
“We get out of it with a tie,” Thornton said. “We’ve done this it seems like every year, (when) we play this hard against each other. It gets the best out of them; it gets the best out of us.
“We did very well in the second half. We are struggling right now finishing off some goals, but we battled right in there. I thought we did much better in the second than we did in the first. The first half, we didn’t possess (the ball) that much. There wasn’t much purpose to what we were doing, and the second half was much, much better.”
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