Yarmouth’s Ashlyn Feeley drives the ball up field Saturday during the Class B state championship against Presque Isle. (Shawn Patrick Ouellette/Portland Press Herald)
Once the Yarmouth High girls’ soccer team showed it had beaten the competition, it started competing to top itself.
Then it made history.
The Clippers rolled to a championship finish of their undefeated season with a 9-0 Class B championship game win Saturday night against Presque Isle at Deering High.
Yarmouth became the first team – boys or girls – to score more than seven goals in a soccer state final.
The game was decided in the first half when Ehryn Groothoff scored all three of Yarmouth’s goals in a 21-shot barrage.
So what did the Clippers do in the second half to top Groothoff’s header, one-time redirection and boomer-from-distance hat trick?
Hannah Merrill produced four goals in less than seven minutes, scoring three herself and setting up Eva Then for an easy tap-in between her second and third goals.
Sara D’Appolonia scored her 33rd goal of the season with 12:50 to play for an 8-0 lead. Hannah Dwyer scored with 5:50 to play.
For the second straight year, the Yarmouth boys’ and girls’ won state titles on the same day at the same site.
“We definitely thought it would be a closer game and it was awesome to beat Presque Isle, and I did it with a great group of girls and I couldn’t have asked for a better senior season,” D’Appolonia said. “And to do it two years in a row with the boys is just really special.”
The crazy thing was that Presque Isle goalie Savannah Rodriguez actually played very well, making 20 saves – 14 in the first half.
“The girls were near faultless,” said Yarmouth Coach Chris Coleman. “Tonight we played without fear, without any pressure, and just enjoyed the game. And they were just ruthless in front of goal.”
Yarmouth completed an 18-0 season with its second straight championship and fourth overall.
Presque Isle finished 14-4.
Meredith Lane and Kate Siegel (final 24 minutes) combined for Yarmouth’s 15th shutout of the season. The Clippers outscored their opponents by a 91-4 margin.
Groothoff got Yarmouth on the board in the eighth minute when she smartly struck a well-positioned cross from D’Appolonia that came down in the middle of the goal area.
“I was very excited to get the first one and think maybe it set the tone,” Groothoff said.
Presque Isle featured its own dominant scorer in junior Madison Michaud (34 goals this season, 86 in her career), but the play of Yarmouth’s overall team, with ball possession outside from Adrianna Whitlock and Ellie Purgavie and a defense headed by Olivia Feeley, limited the North champs to very few possessions in a dangerous area and only one shot on goal.
Groothoff added goals in the 11th minute and 31st minute to make things comfortable.
Merrill willed her way to complete control with scrappy hustle, scoring two goals in two minutes. Her third goal made it 7-0 and tied the previous all-time high for goals in a state championship game, set by the Waterville girls in 1981.
“We knew nothing about that (record),” Merrill said. “We just kept putting them in and it was just amazing.”
Coleman said his team had been a bit frustrated by its relatively scant offensive output in tough playoff victories against York and Cape Elizabeth.
“We definitely had some tough opponents in Cape and Greely, and we’ve pushed past them and came together as a team and we wanted to finish as good as we could, and this was probably better than we ever thought we could.” Merrill said.
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