enlarge Gordon Chibroski/Staff Photographer

Trevor Hoxsie of Scarborough unleashes a shot on goal during the 1-0 overtime victory against Windham in the Western Class A final Wednesday. Scarborough will meet Brunswick in the state final.

enlarge Gordon Chibroski/Staff Photographer

Austin Downing of Scarborough moves in on goal Wednesday night as David Stultz of Windham defends. Scarborough won Western Class A in overtime, 1-0.

CLASS A FINAL

WHO: Brunswick (15-1-1) vs. Scarborough (17-0)

WHEN: 10 a.m. Saturday

WHERE: Scarborough

SCARBOROUGH — The mood that comes with winning probably has become all too familiar to the Scarborough boys' soccer team. But the Red Storm insist that each time they do win, there's something a little different and a little more satisfying.

Wednesday night, the top-seeded Red Storm found another reason to savor yet another win – a 1-0 victory against No. 3 Windham for the Western Class A championship.

It's Scarborough's 35th consecutive win since the start of the 2008 season. But for the seven seniors, this was their championship.

"Since it's my senior season, it's kind of our own season," said Nate Tolman, who scored the game's lone goal. "We had, what, 15 seniors last year? It felt like last year, in a sense, we were playing for them, but now it's our season and we're playing for us. I guess that's what's made it a little different."

Forward Trevor Hoxsie agreed.

"This year it's a whole new team. We're so happy to have worked so hard throughout the season with all these young guys, and coming up and winning the Western Maine final, then going to states."

Tolman's goal with 5:50 left in overtime helped the Red Storm win their fifth regional title in seven years. Scarborough (17-0), the defending Class A champion, will face Brunswick (15-1-1) for the state title Saturday at Scarborough.

And in one of the rare instances this season, the Red Storm had to work through adversity.

"That wasn't a game that we dominated," Hoxsie said. "It was back and forth the whole game. They had good chances, we had good chances and we just wanted to get it over with as soon as possible. We wanted to do it in overtime because the first goal, it's done."

But the Red Storm, who entered averaging almost five goals per game, put just five shots on goal in the first half.

"One of the mistakes we made last time we played them (a 6-0 loss on Oct. 8) was that we tried to defend too much," Windham Coach Paul Baber said.

"Our attitude (Wednesday) was that we were going to press them up the field and get into a rhythm. Against a better team, if you give them too much time they'll string the passes and we didn't want them to do that. So I think we did an excellent job of doing that, and it took to overtime to get a chance."

Likewise, the Eagles (13-3-1) struggled to create opportunities against a defense that had allowed four goals in 16 games.

"We didn't create a lot of opportunities after the first five minutes but we felt our commitment tonight was unbelievable," Baber said. "It took a very good goal to beat us."

It took until overtime for the Red Storm to close in on Windham's goal, and in the 10th minute of overtime, Tolman took a pass from Chase Beech and beat Windham goalie Nick Taylor (13 saves).

"I just thought, 'don't miss,' " Tolman said. "Don't miss this."

Staff Writer Rachel Lenzi can be reached at 791-6415 or at:

rlenzi@pressherald.com