Senior Atherley nets 4 goals as Bangor girls soccer tops Skowhegan in A North quarterfinal

BANGOR, Maine — Senior attacking midfielder Teagan Atherley scored four goals and assisted on another as the top-seeded Bangor High School girls soccer team advanced to the Class A North semifinals with an 8-0 victory over No. 8 Skowhegan at Cameron Stadium on Tuesday night.
The defending A North champs have now won 12 in a row to move their record to 14-1 and will host No. 4 Brunswick, a 3-2 winner over Brewer on a last-minute goal, in Saturday’s semifinal at Cameron Stadium.
Brunswick is 9-5-1 and has won six of its last seven with the only loss coming to Bangor, 4-3, in Bangor on Oct. 19.
Junior attacking midfielder Clara Oldenburg and freshman midfielder Georgie Stephenson each had a goal and an assist; senior forward Maddie McLean and sophomore midfielder Gabby Gordon had the other goals and senior forward Ayzlynn Gifford had three assists.
The Rams wasted little time jumping on top as goals by Atherley and Oldenburg staked them to a 2-0 lead just 6:01 into the game.
Atherley took a pass from Gifford at the top of the penalty area and sizzled a powerful shot into the top corner to the right of Skowhegan goalkeeper Natalie Cooke 2:26 into the game.
Just 3:35 later, Oldenburg and Atherley worked a nifty give-and-go which sent Oldenburg in alone on Cooke racing down the right side.
Oldenburg whipped a shot across the goalmouth into the far corner from a tight angle for her 24th goal of the campaign.
Stephenson made it 3-0 later in the half with a well-placed shot from 12 yards out.
That was the score at the intermission.
Gordon made it 4-0 1:34 into the second half before Atherley scored the next three to bring her season total up to 34 goals.
McLean capped the scoring with a penalty kick and the game was called with 20 minutes remaining due to the mercy rule.
“It was as well as we have moved the ball in a while in terms of everybody being in sync. Our ball movement was tremendous tonight. And the pressure we applied was really good by everybody,” said Bangor coach Jay Kemble. “It didn’t matter where the ball was. Somebody was attacking and applying pressure and that jump-started what we could do, offensively.
“We were able to transition and organize,” he added.
He also said his team was able to shift the ball from side to side and that created alleys and lanes for through balls. He pointed out that it eventually wears teams down.
He said the tandem of Atherley and Oldenburg is “lethal.
“They see the field so well, they have tremendous foot skills and they have the ability to envision where the other is going to be,” he said.
Kemble also thought Gordon “gave us a lot of good setups in our movement to transition the ball from side to side” and sophomore forward Kyelin Atherley, Teagan’s sister, “really gave us a lot in terms of stepping to the ball and rotating it back to Clara or Teagan. She did a real nice job stepping into that positioning tonight.”
Senior Eva Coombs picked up the win in goal while junior Cooke made a number of impressive saves for the River Hawks, who have 11 freshmen and seven sophomores on their 23-player roster.
She stopped Oldenburg on a clean break-in two minutes into the game.