Some wins are sweeter than others, and No. 4 Pembroke’s improbable 2-1 victory over No. 1 Bow at Stellos Stadium in Nashua on Tuesday night in the Division II girls’ soccer semifinals certainly felt extra sweet the Spartans.
The win was improbable not because of talent – Pembroke had already beaten Bow earlier this season. It was improbable because of how the game played out.
The Falcons (15-3-0) thoroughly dominated almost the entire 80 minutes and were poised to punch their ticket to yet another championship game after Lyndsey LaPerle scored off a free kick in the 66th minute. But with under five minutes remaining, Pembroke (15-2-1) got a gift.
Off of a corner, Bow kicked the ball into its own net. Then just two minutes later, Ryley Leblanc scored a goal she won’t soon forget.
Pembroke’s season was on life support. For almost the entire game, Bow controlled the ball in its attacking third. Just five minutes into the action, LaPerle nearly scored on a breakaway opportunity. Spartan keeper Laila Al-Shawafi, only a freshman, kicked it aside. It became a familiar theme.
“She stood on her head for us,” Spartans head coach Jess Kaufman Desrochers said of her goalie. “She’s just so smart, and we’re so lucky to have her this year and for years to come.”
For Bow and head coach Jay Vogt, there was a resigned acceptance after the final whistle. Other than maybe capitalizing on a few more of their scoring chances, there wasn’t much else the Falcons could’ve done.
“They did everything that I asked them to do,” Vogt said. “We dominated. We dominated the game. Congratulations to Pembroke. They kept fighting, and they took advantage and scored, but it’s hard when you dominate a team and lose. But that’s what soccer is.”
The loss closes the book on another highly successful season for Bow. The Falcons will only lose four players off of this year’s roster, but two of them, Lyndsey and Bella LaPerle, seemed to consistently provide the motor that kept the team running.
It was Lyndsey’s play on Tuesday that was most noticeable.
“She has a desire to score. She has a desire to beat people,” Vogt said. “And that’s what you need in a forward. You need that. And she gave it to us. They all did. Everybody on the field that was out there gave it everything they had.
“That’s what I wanted. That’s what we needed.”
Pembroke looks ahead to Friday’s championship game, where the Spartans will face No. 3 Pelham, which took down No. 2 Hollis-Brookline, 4-3, in overtime. The Spartans, since starting the season 1-2-0, have gone 14-0-1 in their last 15 games, but they need to be weary of a letdown.
With so much anticipation heading into Tuesday’s semifinal because of Bow’s victory over Pembroke in last season’s final amid a clock controversy and the fact that Pembroke had already beaten Bow this season, Kaufman Desrochers said it felt like the championship game.
But it wasn’t, and Pembroke will have to dig deep on Friday to find the offensive prowess it so forcefully exerted during the regular season that was largely ineffective on Tuesday.
“We have a deadly attack,” she said. “We’re ready to display that on this field. We didn’t get too much of an opportunity to do it tonight, but we want to come back with it on Friday.”
After nearly a year, waiting for that next chance against Bow in the playoffs, Pembroke flipped the script. On Friday, the Spartans will have their chance to re-write it, hoping to hoist that championship plaque after coming oh so close last year.