NEWPORT — Moments after her team nearly fell behind, Jordyn Condon gave the Nokomis girls soccer team the lead for good.
Condon scored the game-winning goal at the start of the 70th minute, and the eighth-seeded Warriors beat No. 9 Cony 2-1 in the preliminary round of the Class B North playoffs Saturday afternoon.
Condon had two goals for Nokomis, which spent most of the game on the attack in the Rams’ end en route to improving to 8-7-0.
“From the start, we knew we had to go in and play aggressive,” Condon said. “It’s an amazing feeling. We haven’t been here since, I think it was eight years since we last made the playoffs. It’s a great feeling to be back in it.”
Cony, which got a third-minute goal from Ayanna Goonesekere, finished 4-11-0.
“They gave everything they have today,” said Rams coach Jeff Hersey, whose team lost to Nokomis 7-2 on Sept. 17. “I thought the girls played about as well as they possibly could. There was a big difference from when we played them in the (fifth) game of the season.”
The game was tied when Cony nearly capitalized on a rare scoring chance to take the lead, as Briauna Rousseau tried a shot from just in front of the left side of the net in the 69th minute that Nokomis keeper Olivia Harmon stopped for her third save. Harmon then sent the ball down the field, allowing Nokomis to go back on the offensive. The ball eventually went to Condon, who ripped a shot from far back on the left side that found the net with 10:59 to play.
“(Condon) gets this way about her and she just gets sick of the back-and-forth play,” said Nokomis assistant coach Whitney Guy, who was filling in for head coach Lucas Jewett. “She gets really determined, puts her head down and puts it in. She’s just a great player. … She has the dribbling skills to work around anybody. She’s good.”
It was Condon who put Nokomis on the board, with another long shot on a direct kick following a Cony foul with 1:15 to go in the first half.
Cony keeper Kylee Huard (20) makes a save against Nokomis during a Class B North girls soccer prelim Saturday in Newport. Michael G. Seamans/Morning Sentinel
“We went over a few things that we wanted to do,” Hersey said. “We wanted to put a focus on making sure (Condon) knew she had a defender on her all the time, or run different girls off of her and just make her a little uncomfortable playing the ball in the middle. But she’s a really good player.”
Early on, it appeared frustration would be the day’s theme for the Warriors. Cony struck first when Goonesekere chipped a shot that just floated underneath the bar with 37:03 left in the first half, but Nokomis owned possession from there. While Harmon only had to make three saves, Cony keeper Kylee Huard made 12, and Nokomis totaled 12 corners while the Rams had none.
Still, nothing was going in. Huard and a Cony defense that was missing center back Gabby Tibbetts but got some good performances from Jasmine Mace, Kaitlyn Henry and Goonesekere held firm.
“You’ve just got to look for holes,” Guy said. “I think I said it a thousand times, ‘Just look for holes.’ One of them’s bound to go in.”
With the first half winding to a close, one did. And with the game nearing its end, so did another.
“We pulled it together in the last seven minutes of that first half, kind of got into our groove,” Guy said. “That was pretty good. They kept firing.”
It was a disappointing end to a far-from-disappointing season for the Rams, who bounced back from some lean years to be a competitive team this fall.
“In past years, the kids have come in and it’s been like ‘Yep, it’s just going to be another 0-14 year,'” said Hersey, whose team was led this season by 12 goals from Andrea Richardson. “After we beat Waterville (1-0 on Sept. 28), they started thinking and believing. ‘Huh, we can play a little bit.'”
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