Mariners Beat Beavers on Penalty Kicks

Castine, Maine – Maine Maritime outscored UMaine Farmington 4-1 in PK’s after both teams played to a 1-1 draw in a North Atlantic Conference quarterfinal match Wednesday afternoon. With the draw MMA improves to 8-5-3 on the season and advances to play at Husson University in a semifinal match on Sunday afternoon at 1pm.

Maine Maritime struck first in the 7th minute when freshman midfielder Abdullah Alkhayyat (Jeddah, Saudi Arabia) scored after he gathered a failed clear by the UMF keeper and chipped it over his head and into the open net for the 1-0 lead. The Mariners took the 1-0 advantage into halftime.

The Beavers had numerous chances early in the second half but failed to convert until Dillon Clark (Old Town, ME) found the top right corner of the net off of a slotted pass from Michael Kelly (Norton, MA) knotting the score a 1-1.

Regulation ended with the score tied at 1-1. UMF outshot MMA 20-16 in the first 90 minutes with Jeff Butland (Cumberland, ME) leading the way with 9 saves.

The Mariners outshot the Beavers 4-3 in the overtime but the save of the day occurred with :50 seconds left in double overtime. MMA keeper Jeff Butland made a diving save off of a direct kick from the foot of Sean Raph (Fairfield, ME). The match remained a stalemate after two overtimes and went into penalty kicks to decide which team would move on to the next round.

MMA’s Nick El-Hajj (Hampden, ME) was the first to take PK’s for MMA and connected to put MMA up 1-0. Ryan Pelletier (Orrington, ME) was the first to shoot for UMF but was denied after another diving save from Butland. Ben Russell (Farmington, ME) put the Mariners up 2-0 after he tucked his shot into the bottom left corner. Sean Raph was up next for UMF but hit the post and the Beavers faced a 2-0 deficit. Isaiah Roberts (Machias, ME) put MMA up 3-0 before Paul Dupre (Rehoboth, MA) connected for the Beavers to leave the pk tally at 3 to 1. Greg Smith (No. Yarmouth, ME) finished off the visitors with MMA’s fourth tally and ending the match with the Mariners winning 4-1 on PK’s.

Jeff Butland (Cumberland, ME) recorded the tie for MMA making 11 saves on 23 shots. Erik Corcoran (Gorham, NH) made 4 saves on 20 MMA shots in net for the Beavers. UMaine Farmington ends the season at 8-5-3 overall.