Monday, Alie Martell swept the ball into the cage with a half-second remaining in the first half for the game-winner as the Patriots vanquished rival Poland 3-2 in a Western Maine Conference showdown. The win is the fourth in a row for the Patriots, helping the team far surpass its total from the previous two years combined.

“We’ve really focused on their mental and emotional needs, focused on how to handle situation and being prepared,” Gray-NG coach Christa Roddy said. “You can see it, they don’t get rattled, they stay calm, cool, collected and patient. We focused really in in preseason on fixing the things that weren’t working, fixing the spacing issues, fixing plays that weren’t working.

“We talked about how to battle other teams, to recognize what they’re doing and adjust to it and defend it. It’s all just clicking.”

It all clicked in the nick of time for Martell. After a barrage of goals through the middle part of the first half, it appeared the teams would settle into halftime knotted at two. But A quick lapse by the Poland defense, and timely pressure from the Patriots made the difference.

“I think at least six people touched the ball before, like, continuous passing, until it got to me,” Martell said. “Then I crossed it into the goal. I didn’t even look at the clock at all. I just wanted to score, and we needed the extra goal to get ahead.”

“We were definitely watching the ball and had two lines of defense there,” Poland coach Amy Hediger said. “We made an error of not checking over our shoulders there, they had three players there and it should have been a goal. Pass, pass, pass, and in.”

The Knights (0-5) had visions of knotting the score in the second half, and nearly did. After a prolonged flurry of activity following a penalty corner, the ball went sailing into the cage past Gray-NG keeper Adrianna Kimball. But while the front official signaled the goal, the trail official indicated that the initial insertion on the penalty corner try had not crossed the arc before the shot was taken and waved it off.

Poland did score twice, though, and in quick succession after Gray-New Gloucester opened the scoring in the first half. With 17:23 to play in the opening frame, Chloe Hedrich scored for the Patriots (4-2). Just 15 seconds later, Lexi Morey retaliated for Poland on a feed from Sarah Parent. And just 1:24 after that, Carly King made it 2-1 for the Knights on a tough-angled blast from the right side.

“I think our girls showed a lot of resiliency out there after they scored that go-ahead goal,” Hediger said. “We regrouped at halftime, came out a little flat but then called a timeout and restarted them. It’s hard to have that resiliency.”

Jenny Holmquist evened things at 2-2 at the 14:26 mark for the visitors, setting the stage for Martell’s late-half heroics.

The win is the latest for a Gray-New Gloucester Program that set out at the beginning of the season, ironically enough, to emulate Poland’s recent emergence as a team to contend with in the WMC.

“After you’ve seen the struggle to build a program, how it takes time,” Hediger said. “Yeah, it’s G-NG and they’re our rivals, but we also want to see them succeed and do well. They’re obviously in a spot where they can take on the Western Maine Conference. We’re looking forward to playing them again, but we’re also looking forward to see how far they can go. It’s been a few years in the making.”

“I think we’re pretty much exceeding our goals,” Martell said. “We wanted to win more games than we did last year and we’ve already done that. We’re on the right path.”