BANGOR — With precious time ticking away and every scoring opportunity going by the wayside, Deaven Smith wasn’t about to let this one slip away.
The Brewer High School junior made the most of her chance Tuesday, slapping home a perfect cross from Carly Seymour with 59 seconds left in the second overtime as the Witches earned a dramatic 2-1 Class A field hockey victory over Bangor.
Smith was unmarked along the left side of the circle, and Seymour found her and Smith one-touched the ball into the cage to help her Witches improve to 2-0.
“It went between a couple of people’s legs, and I just put a reverse stick [on it] and put it in the goal,” said Smith.
Bangor, which had scored late in the second half to tie it at 1, falls to 0-2.
Both clubs had plenty of chances throughout the two overtime periods, but goalkeepers Casey White of Brewer and Taylor Pomroy of Bangor came up with some clutch saves, including a few gems.
One of those was White stuffing the Rams’ Meegan Bolduc with 3:50 to play in the second overtime, while Pomroy came up with a point-blank stop in the final minutes of regulation.
“Both ‘keepers, excellent job, a lot of aggressiveness,” said Brewer coach Duffy Dorion. “Coming out and cutting down the angles, you can’t always teach that.”
The Witches scored 1:27 into the game, with Delaney Turner banging home a Rowan Bost pass, and Brewer put plenty of pressure on the Rams’ back line early.
“We just came out ready to play with a lot of intensity and we just wanted to show them what the rest of the game was going to be like,” said Bost.
Bangor generated just two shots in the first half, both off of penalty corners, but coach Krystal Doughty’s club picked things up after halftime, making crisper passes and generating more scoring chances.
“We have a really coachable group of girl [and] it really shows,” Doughty said. “They’re making those adjustments, that’s all we can ask for right now.”
The Rams seized the momentum with 12:56 remaining in regulation, with Hillary Throckmorton accepting a pass from Bolduc at the top of the circle and blistering it to White’s right.
But the Witches showed unshakable confidence, and kept their heads in the game.
“For a little bit in the second half our intensity started to slip and we weren’t doing as many things right as we were in the first half,” Bost said. “But then once we kind of realized how much was at stake we picked it up a little bit.”
The teams switched to the 7-on-7 format for the overtimes, which created equal scoring opportunities on both ends, and the intensity level grew.
“Both teams had plenty of chances that they didn’t capitalize on and we were fortunate enough to get that break,” said Dorion.
White, a junior in her first varsity season, keeps improving in the cage.
“She’s waited for this chance for three years, she had an all-state goalie, Angela Patterson, in front of her, so she has waited, and I think she’ll just play with no regrets every time,” Dorion said.
White came up with five saves on 13 Bangor shots while Pomroy saved 12 of 17 shots for Bangor, while Abby Lebowitz excelled on the back line for the Rams and thwarted several Brewer breakaway opportunities late in the game.