Raiders topple Sabers in double overtime in girls soccer playoffs

NASHUA – There will be no recount following this Election Day’s results, at least, not on the soccer field.

The Souhegan High School girls could have used one Tuesday at Stellos Stadium.

Having battled second-seeded Lebanon for 119 scoreless minutes of soccer in the Division II semifinals, the No. 3 Sabers saw their season come to an end on what might have been the least threatening of the Raiders’ 24 shots.

With six seconds left before the end of the second overtime, Lebanon’s Karampreet Kaur got her foot on the ball about 13 yards away from the goal and to the right of Souhegan goalie Holly Bourassa. The ball went high in the air, and Bourassa drifted to her left, eyeing the shot and waiting for the right moment to attempt to knock it away.

As Bourassa went up for the ball, it appeared Lebanon’s Emily Kehoe, who was charging the net, crashed into her just before Bourassa’s hand made contact with the ball. The pair went tumbling into the net along with the ball to give the Raiders a 1-0 double-overtime win.

“It’s just shame that it ends on something like that,” Souhegan coach Dwayne Andreasen said. “She put up a shot that blooped and beat our keeper over the top. That wasn’t a goal; that was a ball that went into the net. The bottom line is that Lebanon put the ball in the net and we didn’t.”

The way the Raiders (16-2-1) controlled play throughout– Souhegan (15-4) had just four shots the entire game – it seemed a matter of time before they’d finally get one by Bourassa, who made 14 saves. Many of those stops came off a diving or leaping attempt to keep the ball out of the net.

“Holly played out of her mind,” Andreasen said. “We knew Lebanon was big and strong and able to shoot from anywhere. We told Holly she was going to have to come up big and it was the best game of Holly’s career, I think. I don’t have enough great things to say about Holly and the way she played tonight.”

Lebanon coach Shannon Boisvert, whose team didn’t see Souhegan all season, knew two things going into Tuesday’s game – the Sabers had a solid threat up top in Kelsea Bemis and they had a solid keeper in Bourassa.

“She made some great saves today and props to her,” Boisvert said. “I knew that was going to happen. We got one high, which is what we needed to do. It went in. I didn’t see it clearly, there was such commotion. It just happened so fast.”

There was some complaint from the Souhegan bench that Kehoe raced in offsides on the winning shot, and while the Lebanon sophomore made contact with Bourassa, the officials determined that it wasn’t enough to warrant them disallowing the goal.

“Judgment calls are hard to deal with in the last seconds of a game,” Andreasen said. “They made the call and that’s what they do. Unfortunately, we’ve got to deal with it.

“Every coach tells their players to leave it all on the field and if you do that, you can hold your head high when you walk off. There is no reason that my kids can’t hold their head high. I told them I was proud of them. This was more than my dream to make it this far with this group of kids.”

Bemis, Bourassa and Emily Hagen were the only seniors on the field for Souhegan, and of the rest of the starters this season, five were freshmen and three were sophomores. And that doesn’t include junior back Shelby Belak, who was forced from the game in the first overtime with a groin injury.

“Now these girls are mad and the ones that come back are going to come back to prove something,” Andreasen said. “I like what we did for a rebuilding year and I like where we’re going to go forward.”

For the Raiders, it’s their first trip to a championship game since 1988, when Boisvert was a sophomore forward at Lebanon.

“The girls know this,” Boisvert said. “They walk into the gym everyday and see that runner-up banner (from that season). They know Lebanon hasn’t had a championship yet.”

The Raiders will have a chance for that first title Saturday, when they take on No. 4 Portsmouth, which defeated No. 8 Hanover 1-0 in the other semifinal, at 4:45 p.m. at Southern New Hampshire University in Manchester.