BANGOR, Maine — Lea Scrapchansky said she wanted to do something for her team. So when Brunswick High School’s junior midfielder/winger had an opportunity to take a shot late in Thursday night’s game against Bangor, she did so.
Scrapchansky’s goal with only 8:12 remaining in regulation gave the Dragons a 1-0 victory over Bangor.
Brunswick improved to 5-0 while Bangor fell to 2-1-1. Brunswick has allowed only one goal this season.
“I wanted to win so badly,” said Scrapchansky, who curled a 13-yard left-footed shot from the left side of the penalty area over the head of Bangor goalie Alexis LeBreton and saw it glance in off the crossbar.
“I took a pass from one of my teammates, dribbled through a couple of defenders and I saw the goal open. I noticed that the goalie wasn’t at the near post,” said Scrapchansky, who is averaging a goal a game and had a game-high eight shot attempts. “She wasn’t tall enough to reach it so I shot it right under the crossbar.”
“It was spinning out outward towards where the 6-(yard box) is. It just barely hit the crossbar and then went in the back of the net,” said LeBreton.
Bangor pressed for an equalizer and generated two corner kicks but could not convert.
In the entertaining contest between two highly-skilled teams, Bangor owned the lion’s share of possession in the first half but Brunswick came out and carried the play for the majority of the second half.
Brunswick goalkeeper Beth Labbe prevented Bangor from taking the lead with 20 minutes to go, making a terrific save off a give-and-go involving Libby Spekhardt and the dynamic Eliza Jansujwicz.
The speedy Spekhardt slid the ball over to Jansujwicz on the right wing and sprinted down the middle of the penalty area. Jansujwicz gave her a quick return pass but Labbe read the pass and smothered Spekhardt’s point-blank shot.
“I was going for the cross, she was right there to I knew to go down,” said Labbe. “She kicked it right at me. I knew what I had to do.”
“I should have just hit it to a corner,” said Spekhardt. “She is a very talented ’keeper.”
Labbe was elated with the win, pointing out that Brunswick hasn’t beaten Bangor in eight years.
She finished with seven saves on 15 shots while LeBreton had eight on 16 Brunswick attempts.
Bangor’s Maddie Ahola had the best chance in the first half when she sprinted onto a precise diagonal ball from Sophia Mullins on the left side of the penalty area.
The ball took a thigh-high bounce and Ahola steered it wide of the near post from 10 yards out.
“There were two great teams. We went end-to-end,” said Brunswick coach Martyn Davison. “It could have gone either way.
“We played well in the second half. We had some good chances and I was frustrated we didn’t finish more. But, at the end of the day, I thought it would be a 2-1 or 1-0 game. Our goalie is phenomenal.”
Davison said they tightened up at the back after the first 10 minutes of the game when Bangor was able to create chances off some long balls as the Ram strikers got behind the defense.
“We kind of got that sorted out. I thought we were always dangerous on the break and we got our reward, we really did,” said Davison. “We deserved to (win) but their coach can say the same thing.”
Bangor coach Joe Johnson said they were without starting striker Riley Andrews (appendix), who is one of their leading scorers, and talented center midfielder Bella Varisco (concussion) and he was really pleased with the way his team performed without them. They are also without standout senior back Lauren Young (broken leg), who has resumed practicing.
“We had a lot of kids step up, kids that hadn’t played a lot. The loss doesn’t feel good but we had some growth in a lot of players and that will pay off in the long run,” said Johnson.
Brunswick won the JV game 3-1.