FREEPORT — Nothing stopped Asja Kelman on Friday night.
The Greely senior attack scored six goals – five in the first quarter – and had seven assists as the fourth-seeded Rangers beat fifth-seeded Cony, 18-3, in a Class B girls’ lacrosse quarterfinal at Joan Benoit Samuelson Track and Field.
“We were just creating a lot of openings for each other,” Kelman said. “We embedded some motions in the first quarter that worked super well. We’re also communicating so well with each other. We can always push each other through, get assists, which is super important and gets us goals.”
Greely, the two-time defending state champion, will play No. 1 Mt. Ararat or No. 8 Biddeford in the semifinals on Wednesday. Eva Williams and Jane Flynn each added four goals for the Rangers (11-4), while Audrey Ingersoll scored twice.
Cony finished 10-5. Casey Monson, Katelynn Dutil and Abby Morrill tallied goals for the Rams in the fourth quarter.
Greely was methodical with its offense, working around the net throughout the game, passing the ball and looking for open shots in front of the net. Kelman benefited the most from the strategy, scoring five times in a seven-minute stretch of the first quarter.
“We’ve been working so hard on getting that ball movement, and it finally clicked today, and it was beautiful,” Greely Coach Becca Koelker said. “The way they were moving the ball and finding each other, it was just really fabulous play, just finding those assists for the scorers. They were very disciplined out there, just looking for the right opportunity. That’s huge growth for us.”
Kelman added one more goal, late in the third quarter, but played the role of distributor throughout the rest of the contest, setting up goals by Williams and Flynn. The only issue Kelman had was a cut to her elbow, which caused her to sit out the final eight minutes of the second quarter while getting treatment.
Though Greely had to replace multiple starters from its 2023 title team because of graduation, its offense has found a groove late in the season. The Rangers are 5-1 in their last six games, outscoring opponents by a 73-23 margin. The have 33 goals in their last two games.
“We’ve just been doing a lot of transition work, things that are going to move the ball into our attacking end to score,” Kelman said. “But we’ve just become so much more connected, and that just means the world and helps us win.”
“I feel like at the beginning of the season, we were kind of playing as a defense and as an attack, but not together,” Koelker said. “Really, today, the transitions and goals we got off transitions, that speaks to the cohesion that they’ve cemented (on the field). Now they know how to work off each other.”
Cony fought throughout but was simply outmatched by a strong Greely attack. The Rams found their footing offensively in the fourth quarter, as Monson, Dutil and Morrill scored in the final four minutes.
“I’m really proud of (the team), they had a great season,” Cony Coach Gretchen Livingston said. “To finish (No. 5) out of 15 teams, with one senior, starting five freshmen and four sophomores, we got to take a look at that. All of the girls that are coming back, now we know what we’re aspiring to, and things we know we want to work on to raise our level of play and be competitive in the postseason… I’m looking forward to the future with a really young team that’s coming back hungry.”
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