RICHMOND — The Richmond and Greenville boys soccer teams have played some classic games over the past few years but unfortunately stopped scheduling them when Greenville changed its schedule.
Wednesday, the teams renewed their rivalry in the Class D South regional championship game and reminded fans what a great matchup this has been.
Greenville senior Trajdan MacFadyen scored in the second round of penalty kicks to lift the upstart Lakers to a 2-1 victory over the top-seeded Bobcats.
Sixth-seeded Greenville (11-5-1) will face North champion Bangor Christian for the state title Saturday at Fitzpatrick Stadium in Portland. Richmond finishes its season at 15-2-0.
Greenville got a first half goal from Ben Baldwin while senior Matt Holt scored in the second half for the Bobcats. Richmond outshot the Lakers 9-4 in the second half and through two 15 minute overtime periods, but other than Holt’s goal, couldn’t quite make connections. The teams then went to penalty kicks that extended through two rounds of five.
“My whole career’s been battling with these guys so it’s come full turn again,” Greenville coach Jeff Richards said. “We had four years where we played to double overtime every single game. They played a great game today and we just got lucky on the end of it.”
MacFadyen was the 10th Laker to attempt a penalty kick. To that point each team had scored five times, but the Lakers had the final shot and MacFadyen buried it in the left corner past Richmond goalie Zach Small (12 saves).
“I figured that he wasn’t expecting me to go to the side he was going to play to,” MacFadyen said. “Then I did what another senior (Matt Mendes) taught me about just taking a few steps back, psych him out a little bit, pick a side, look the other way, then kick it to that side.”
Baldwin scored in the first half when he stole the ball and went in on Small alone. Holt scored when he booted home a short rebound after a shot from Matt Rines.
The Bobcats had better scoring chances that either went wide or high or were stopped by Greenville keeper Evan Bjork (16 saves).
“We never quite got it synched together and finish it off like we’d like to finish it off,” Richmond coach Peter Gardner said. “I thought a couple of times we had it but that’s the way the ball bounces sometimes. The part we don’t like is penalty kicks but we put it into that situation.”
Greenville led 3-2 in the first round of penalty kicks when each team sent its fifth and final shooter for an attempt. This time, Small was the shooter and beat Bjork to the left side.
“It’s a challenge,” Bjork said. “It’s really a bad way to end a game but you have to do it some way.”
Bjork could have sealed it with his team’s final shot in the first round but Small made the save to send it to a second round of PKs. Holt and Mitch Couturier scored for Richmond while Mendes and Chris Caiazzo scored for Greenville before MacFadyen’s game-winner.
Richards credited his team’s schedule, which included several Class C schools, in preparing his team to face the top-seeded Bobcats.
“I think it really helped us out a lot,” Richards said. “These guys faced some pretty tough teams and they were ready for this (caliber).”
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