Flynn leads PI girls to victory,
boys bounce back with shutout
PRESQUE ISLE, Maine — A diving save by Wildcat goalkeeper Jillian Flynn with 55 seconds to play preserved a 2-1 home victory over Mount Desert Island Saturday and kept Presque Isle undefeated at 4-0 entering tonight’s home game against Fort Kent.
Presque Isle had taken a 2-0 lead as Jordi Legassie scored off a rebound of a Taylor Williams shot in the first half and Emily Wheaton tallied off a Legassie assist 13 minutes into the second half.
However, the Trojans cut the lead in half when Opal Curless blasted a shot past Flynn off a Maeve Geary assist with 22 minutes to play.
Curless, a junior who according to PI coach Ralph Michaud has already received a scholarship offer to play soccer at Syracuse University, had another crack at a goal with time running down, but her shot from 15 yards out toward the left side of the goal was deflected away by a sprawling Flynn.
“She’s a great player,” Michaud said of Curless. “She’s phenomenal and I think the best player in the conference, but today, we were a better team.”
Flynn, a junior, finished with 15 saves on 17 shots and sometimes ventured out of the goalie box to snuff out offensive chances for MDI.
Assistant coach Dillon Kingsbury, a former Wildcat goalie himself who works with Flynn during practices, said her fearlessness is a valuable attribute to the team.
“She doesn’t care if she takes the ball off the face, elbow, shin, nose. She knows she’s doing it for the team and will do that 100 times out of 100 times,” Kingsbury said. “She also does a good job communicating and getting the defense where they need to be.”
MDI coach Tom Savage said that Flynn was definitely the difference in the match.
“There is often a risk with that kind of aggressiveness, but she made the saves and it was a good game for her,” said Savage, whose team has never won in PI in his 11 years as the coach. “[The Wildcats] always hustle, are well coached and are so organized. They are like that every year and we expect that.”
In the boys’ game that followed, Andrew Paterson wasn’t tested quite as much, but he still came through with the goalie shutout in a 1-0 win over MDI. Paterson, a senior in his first year as the Wildcat netminder, picked up his second shutout of the season and he has now allowed just one goal over the last three games.
Presque Isle utilized an early goal from senior striker Ben Nickerson, who ripped in a shot off an assist from defender Nick Bartlett 1:58 into the contest, and made it stand up for the team’s third win against a single loss.
Wildcat coach Joe Greaves was impressed with the teamwork his club demonstrated in downing the opponents from the Bar Harbor region.
“I thought we did a much better job playing as a team and communicating,” said Greaves, whose squad was coming off a 1-0 home loss to Hermon a week earlier. “Last week, we seemed to be playing as individuals and this week we played as a team.
“Everyone played hard for 80 minutes and there were no letdowns,” he added.
The Wildcats have a rematch against Fort Kent tonight at home. PI managed a 6-3 win over the Warriors in the initial meeting Aug. 26.
