HAMPDEN, Maine — Belfast High School ran into a hot goalie in Lawrence of Fairfield’s Marian Zawistowski on Wednesday night. But the Lions received late second-half goals 1:35 apart from Cassie Jackson and Miss Maine Field Hockey finalist Kylie Nelson to subdue Lawrence 2-0 for the Class B North title at Hampden Academy.
Zawistowski, who had made 19 saves in the Bulldogs’ 1-0 double-overtime semifinal win over previously undefeated Foxcroft Academy, made 13 saves including several gems on Wednesday.
Belfast, now 17-1, will take on defending two-time state champ York, 17-0, in Saturday’s state championship game at McMann Field in Bath. York has won 53 straight games.
Belfast will be making its first state championship game appearance since 2012.
The persistent Lions finally broke through on their 14th penalty corner.
The ball was inserted to Nelson by Lindsay Bruns, but the ball skipped over her stick to midfielder Kelsey Mehuren.
Mehuren took a couple of strides down the middle and flipped a shot toward goal and Jackson redirected it past Zawistowski.
“I just sent it right back in and we got lucky to get that tip-in,” said Mehuren. “She did awesome to get it right in.”
“It stopped at the goalie’s feet and I pushed it around her,” said Jackson, whose goal was her third of the season.
Just 1:35 later, Nelson converted on their 15th corner when her blast from the top of the circle deflected off a Lawrence stick and past Zawistowski.
“They weren’t coming out and playing me on the corners so I kept taking shots and hoping one would go in,” said Nelson, whose registered her 36th goal of the season to extend her school-record total to 95.
The speedy and highly-skilled Nelson, who will attend Bryant University in the fall, made a number of scintillating runs with several coming off high aerial passes by Mehuren.
But Zawistowski stopped seven of her shots as she dashed off her line on the penalty corners to cut down the angle and absorb the shots in her pads.
Mehuren finally fired the ball past the goalie early in the second half, but Lawrence fullback Molly Folsom stopped the ball along the goal line with her stick.
Lawrence defended admirably and had a few chances.
Belfast goalie Morgan Fernald did make an important intervention when she dove out and smothered a Lexi Lewis breakaway early in the second half and sent Lewis sprawling.
Zawistowski made a similar move to thwart Nelson a little later.
Belfast had 21 shot attempts to Lawrence’s three.
Fernald made one save.
Belfast dominated the first half, but Zawistowski came up with six saves including three off Nelson.
Belfast had eight penalty corners and generated a number of good chances only to have the aggressive Zawistowski come off her line and kick out the shots.
“We had to turn up the heat on offense,” said Belfast coach Jan (Holmes) Jackson, Cassie’s mom. “We couldn’t keep going on her pads, we had to go around her and we finally did.”