Women's soccer: Maine Maritime drifts past stubborn UMF

UMF goalie Kiana Thompson gets ready to stop Maine Maritime’s Eryn Doiron’s (20) shot as UMF’s Jillian Shangold (11) tries to intervene while teammate Emi Higgins (15) watches at Bob Leib Field in Farmington on Tuesday.

FARMINGTON — All Maine Maritime Academy could do was hold a steady course when the University of Maine at Farmington pressured the Mariners in the second half.

The Mariners (6-9) made their precious and precarious one-goal lead hold up for a hard-fought 1-0 win over the Beavers (7-8) in a North Atlantic Conference women’s soccer game at Bob Leib Field on a brisk and sunny Tuesday afternoon.

“I was hoping it (one-goal lead) wouldn’t, I guess when it is against us,” UMF coach Molly Wilkie said. “You know they play tough defensively. It is hard to get through that back line. We did everything we could to put one in but…

“I think one of things we talked about at halftime was trying to not just react to what they were doing, but create the rhythm and create the opportunities that we know we that we can have instead of just being reactive.

“So I thought we did a little bit better with that and then toward the end we were just trying to put people forward and see if we could get a break. That’s a good team and they played tough, too.”

Junior forward Makayla Lewis scored her unassisted goal on a free position kick with 23:36 left in the first half. She was fouled outside the box.

After Lewis’ scored that rare goal, it became a battle in midfield for both teams, with UMF doing everything in its power to come up with a goal for the next 68 minutes of game time.

But a goal never came, even though this was an even matchup on paper. The Mariners held 12-10 advantage in shots and in a 7-5 margin in corners. It went that way in net for each goalie. UMF netminder Kiana Thompson made eight saves and her counterpart Emily Conway turned away four shots.

“We knew that Farmington was very high energy, good getting forward, so we were just trying to organize a little bit better in the middle, but we thought if we could press a little bit higher up the field, it might better for us,” Maine Maritime coach Seth Brown said. “We haven’t scored a lot of goals this year, either. Our goal has been to score one and hang on.

“I thought in the first half we held possession really well. I thought Farmington did a much better job against us in the second half. It was good. It was like a playoff game today. I am sure we will see each other in another week.”

The University of Maine at Farmington’s Leah Stevens (2) battles with Maine Maritime’s Autumn Acord (18) for the ball in a women’s soccer game at Bob Leib Field in Farmington on Tuesday. The Mariners won, 1-0.