YARMOUTH — Katherine Millett’s offensive exploits during her four-year field hockey career at North Yarmouth Academy are well-documented. In four years, the senior scored 96 goals, many in key situations, and through three years had earned four regional titles with the team and two state championships.

Saturday, her defensive efforts secured for the Panthers a third Class C crown in four seasons.

Millett stuffed a scoring opportunity by Winthrop’s Shauna Carlson with a block just inside the circle on the second round of penalty corners and carried the ball out across the 25-yard line herself, preserving for NYA a 1-0 victory in the Class C field hockey championship contest at Yarmouth High School.

“I never know when something big is about to happen,” Millett said. “I didn’t know we were about to end corners. When they started yelling, ‘Millett!’ I thought I was doing something wrong. I was like, ‘I am not letting go of this ball.'”

Moments earlier, the Panthers scored the only goal of the contest on their second opportunity during the first set of penalty corners when sophomore Olivia Madore tipped the ball through traffic on a blast by Kayla Rose. The ball glanced off Madore’s stick and trickled toward the lower right corner of the cage. It glanced off the right post as Winthrop keeper Alyssa Arsenault and a pair of defenders dove after it, just moments too late.

“I’m in shock,” Madore said as she tried to gather her thoughts following the awards ceremony. She couldn’t recall the goal itself.

“(Friday) in practice, we did a lot of tipping drills,” she said, “and I scored on all of them, and everyone was telling me, ‘You’re going to get it (Saturday), you’re going to get it.'”

The goal came officially in the second round of sudden-death penalty corners, on NYA’s sixth overall attempt at the play, though none came in regulation. NYA didn’t earn a penalty corner in regulation, and only twice had the opportunity in the two overtime sessions.

“We really didn’t know what their penalty corners were going to look like,” Winthrop coach Sharon Coulton said. “That can be good news or bad news.”

The victory caps an impressive run for the young NYA squad, which will graduate only two seniors — Millett and Katie Cawley.

“I told them at the beginning of the year, the only thing that’s going to stop us is if the kids don’t believe in themselves,” Quimby said. “It wasn’t, ‘OK, we’re going back to defend at the state championships.’ I didn’t want them to start the season thinking about that big hurdle to jump over. They did it one game at a time. We had losses along the way, and I think that actually helped us. We realized how we needed to improve.”

Winthrop isn’t rolling in seniors, either. The Ramblers will also graduate only two players — Paige Wood and Nikki Burgess. After dropping only a pair of games to regular-season unbeaten Class B Spruce Mountain during the regular season, the Ramblers ran through the playoffs, knocking off perennial Eastern Class C power Dexter for a chance to win their first state title in 22 years.

“That was major, and we’re still going to celebrate that,” Coulton said, a smile returning momentarily to her face. “We have a lot of speed and the kids played with a lot of heart.”

Winthrop dominated time of possession all game long, spending more time than not inside the NYA end. The Ramblers generated more scoring chances — earning nine penalty corners in regulation to the Panthers’ none.

But they couldn’t finish.

“The have a very strong left side,” Quimby said. “We worked on it over the last few days in practice. But they had a really good opportunity at the end, and we got a little lucky.”

“That’s one of the things we said we had to focus on this week,” Coulton said. “We needed to give ourselves chances to score. The kids took some really good shots that didn’t quite go.”

At the other end, when NYA did push the ball into Winthrop territory, the defense, led by Jessica Scott in the middle, turned them back emphatically. Arsenault saw only three shots get through in regulation, and she kicked all three aside.

“It wasn’t very pretty at times,” Quimby admitted. “It was one of those games. It was frustrating that we couldn’t get our offense going, but they stuck with it.”

“We definitely struggled putting the emphasis on offense today,” Millett said. “But we won the game, so, whatever happened, that’s fine for me.”

The seven-on-seven overtime periods proved a bit more to NYA’s liking. The Panthers generated a few scoring opportunities during the two eight-minute sessions, earning their first two penalty corners of the contest in the process. But nothing materialized.

Lauren Kaiser and Mary Claire Blanchard had chances to win the game for Winthrop early in the second overtime, but NYA keeper Elizabeth Coughlin kicked Kaiser’s shot away, and Blanchard sent the rebound wide left.

NYA earned a pair of penalty corners within the first round of sudden death corners but couldn’t solve Arsenault. Winthrop’s first attempt ended quickly with the inbound pass skipped away from the top of the circle and over the 25-yard line. Millett’s block and subsequent clear ended the Ramblers’ second attempt.

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