Old Town girls soccer snaps Hermon’s 55-game win streak
HERMON – The streak has ended!
The Old Town High School girls soccer team scored the game’s first four goals and snapped Hermon’s 55-game winning streak against North opponents, including playoffs, with an impressive 4-2 victory on a steamy Saturday afternoon at Pottle Field.
The Coyotes, 2-0 losers to Hermon in the Class B North final last season, had a decided edge in possession and won most of the 50-50 balls en route to building their 4-0 lead.
The desperate Hawks played with a greater sense of urgency over the final 25 minutes and scored a pair of goals to pull within 4-2 with 3:59 remaining in regulation but it was too little, too late.
Old Town improved to 2-0 and will host Orono on Thursday at 6 p.m. while defending three-time Class B North champ Hermon, now 3-1 after losing a regular season game for the first time since 2018, will host Hampden Academy on Wednesday at 6.
Senior striker and captain Alexis Degrasse scored the only goal of the first half before the Coyotes erupted for three in the first 14:27 of the second half as a pair of goals from sophomore wing-midfielder Karina Dumond sandwiched one by junior midfielder Rhiannon Bousquet.
Sophomore forward Olivia Lizzotte had a pair of assists and Degrasse also had one while senior goalkeeper Danica Brown finished with six saves on 13 Hermon shot attempts.
Sophomore forward Madison Stewart scored off a Sam Grover pass with 24:35 remaining and senior forward Grover converted a Stewart pass with 3:59 remaining.
Senior goalkeeper Bella Bowden wound up with seven saves on 18 Old Town shots.
Old Town’s tenacious back line of senior Saige Evans, juniors Allyson Caron and Sadie May and sophomore Libby Saucier was immense throughout the contest, limiting Hermon’s possession, forcing turnovers and triggering counter attacks with their passes or clearances from the back.
“We have a very fast defense and that catches a lot of teams off-guard,” said Old Town coach Eric Damboise. “And we were able to catch them offsides, which was a big help.”
Evans said they knew what they had to do to shut down a team that had averaged six goals per game in its first three contests.
“We were big on not giving them much time or space with the ball. We wanted to get it out of the back and get it up to our offense as quickly as possible,” said Evans.
Degrasse opened the scoring off a long throw-in by Evans which was flicked across the goalmouth by the head of Makayla Emerson. A scramble ensued.
“It hit off one of my teammate’s heads and it was kicked into the middle,” said Degrasse who calmly headed the ball into the open net from point-blank range.
The lead swelled to 2-0 two minutes into the second half when Lizzotte crossed the ball from the left side into the path of the onrushing Dumond.
“It was a great cross onto my stomach and I thrust it into the goal,” said Dumond.
The fully-extended Bowden got a hand on it but it had too much power on it and carried into the net.
Eight minutes later, Lizzotte found Bousquet at the top of the penalty area and Bousquet hit a perfectly-placed shot with the outside of her right foot inside the far post to Bowden’s left.
“I wanted to put it to the far corner,” said Bousquet.
Dumond scored her second five minutes later with a nifty move that created a one-on-one with Bowden.
“Lexi [Degrasse] played a great through ball to me. I was able to tap it around the goalie and then put it in with my left foot,” said Dumond, whose two-goal game was the first of her career.
Stewart put the Hawks on the scoreboard as she raced onto a Grover pass and steered the ball past the onrushing Brown.
Hermon’s Brooke Gallop volleyed a corner kick off the crossbar and Brown came up with a pair of saves on high shots from distance before Grover concluded the scoring with a 14-yard shot inside the far post off a Stewart pass.
Speedy Hermon winger and goal scoring leader Natalie Tardie, who had seven in the three wins, sustained a wrist injury late in the game and didn’t return.
One of the highlights of the game was the terrific battle between Tardie and the diminutive Caron, who are two of the fastest and most highly-skilled players in the region.
In addition to marking Tardie, Caron also exhibited exceptional awareness and used her quickness to slide over and help her fellow defenders.
“She was the best player on the field among both teams,” said Hermon coach M.J. Ball.
Caron said the win “means a lot to us.
“We’ve been trying to beat them [for years],” said Caron. “This is amazing.”
Ball called it a tough day at the office.
“By the time we started to play our brand of soccer, it was too late. We scored two but gave up four and that’s never a recipe for success. Give them credit, they worked harder than we did,” Ball said. “But I’d rather lose now than at the end of the season.”