Auburn, ME - The Mustangs were looking to stay undefeated in October with their fourth win in a row as they hosted Southern Maine Community College in an important Yankee Small College Conference matchup. Central Maine won the first game of the series 3-1 down in South Portland a few weeks ago in a tightly contested, physical game.
The Seawolves came out as the aggressor with Central Maine back on their heels in the first ten minutes of the game. The Mustangs needed to tighten up their midfield play to avoid another slow start. They did eventually settle into the flow of the game which went up and down the field with neither team having a quality chance at net.
With three minutes left in the first half, Alexis Finn (Wales, ME) fed a ball to Lakyn Hink (Porter, ME) with her back to goal just outside the Seawolves penalty area and Hink turned on it and put a shot that dropped into the bottom corner of the net past the Southern Maine keeper to give the Mustangs a 1-0 lead that they carried into halftime.
Central Maine came out for the second half at a faster pace than they did at the start of the game, trying to ride the high conditioning level that has carried them all season. Within ten minutes Finn slipped a pass to a breaking Natalie Tracy (Oakland, ME), who had been relatively quiet in the first half, and Tracy notched her first of the game to double the Mustangs lead. Four minutes later Tracy would then feed Hink a ball up the middle who put it in the low corner of the Southern Maine net to put Central Maine up 3-0. In the 25th minute the Mustangs high press paid off when Tracy stole the ball from two Seawolves defenders and then split them to take it to the net with another low corner shot to extend the Central Maine lead to 4-0. At that point the Mustangs simply needed to prevent any serious attempts at their goal for the rest of the half wanting to avoid letting a good Southern Maine team back into the game.
Seawolves goalkeeper Grayson Soldati made 9 saves in the loss while Mustangs keeper Emma Knowles (Manchester, ME) made 8 saves for the shutout win.
The win put the Mustangs in first place in the Yankee Conference with the same record as Paul Smith's College but gaining the top spot on the head-to-head matchup which Central Maine won less than a week ago.
The Mustangs close out conference play on Saturday October 14th at 5pm at home against Hampshire College. A win will lock in the top seed in the upcoming YSCC Conference Tournament (hosted by CM) and notch the first YSCC Regular Season Championship in program history.
