BUCKFIELD — Isabell Laughton gave Buckfield a head start with back-to back goals early in the first half, but she also knew it would take the rest of the game to make her efforts stick.
The soft-spoken senior forward collected two assists along the way to help orchestrate the Bucks’ 6-0 victory over tenacious Mountain Valley in an MVC girls soccer game on a sun-drenched Monday afternoon.
“It definitely started out the game, but overall, you just have to keep playing like that to get what you want to get,” Laughton said. “I want to get to the championship.
“(The Falcons) are a good team, but what made us feel good about ourselves is they wanted to beat us. They look at us like, ‘We need to beat Buckfield.’”
Laughton used her speed and agility to put Buckfield (3-2) on the board with a 1-0 lead, with senior midfielder Olivia Buswell picking up the assist eight minutes into the game.
But the warm sun had no effect on Laughton, who scored her second goal by lofting the ball over the Falcons goalie Emma Koch’s head on Kai Trenoweth’s first of two assists, providing Buckfield a solid 2-0 advantage.
“(Isabell) has been a soccer player since she was little,” Buckfield coach Larry Thornton said. “She was this quiet, little freshman with a lot of speed and she loves the game of soccer. She will do anything to score a goal and to make an assist.
“We moved her to outside halfback. That was her idea. That’s how unselfish she is. She has always been a striker, but she saw an opportunity and said, ‘Coach, I would like to play the outside.’ And she said, ‘I think I can use my skills out there better,’ and I said, ‘You know, let’s try it.’”
Freshman forward Brittany Carrier soon followed to cap the Bucks’ first-half scoring with her goal after connecting with Trenoweth as Buckfield headed into the second half with a 3-0 lead.
“We lost two games right away at the beginning of the season — one to Oak Hill and one to Madison,” Thornton said. “We knew those (losses) were no good from our standpoint. We didn’t play well and we knew we could play better.
“Today was a really good example of how we are starting to put things back together. We still have a ways to go, but this was a really good effort to see.”
Carrier picked up where she left off in the second half and scored her second goal on a feed from Laughton, who also collected her second assist on a goal from freshman midfielder Cora Brewster.
The Bucks took a comfortable lead with a 5-0 advantage, but the Falcons (1-3) weren’t about to throw in the towel and kept pressing for the remainder of the game.
Sophomore defender Emily Tilton scored to round out the Bucks’ 6-0 victory, using an assist from Carrier. Buckfield goalie Ruby Cyr made three saves and had a light afternoon for the most part.
But whatever happened today, there is no debate that the Falcons have depth. They have over two dozen athletes on the team, including two goalies. Koch and Justice Gendron combined for 20 saves.
“We are up and coming for sure. We are a young team and we are still trying to put it together,” Mountain Valley coach Jeff Pelletier said. “We went down early. We didn’t expect that.”
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