By Matt Stout
Staff Writer

John Stark’s Laura Methot, left, and Nikki Rauscher celebrate the Generals’ 2-1 overtime win against Con-Val in the Class I quarterfinals on Monday, Oct. 30. The victory earned John Stark its second semifinal appearance in program history and first since the early 1990s. (Goffstown News/Matt Stout)

After watching a third John Stark player hit the ground on a physical play and require help off the field, head coach Heather Doucette had seen enough.

Before sending her girls soccer team out for the second overtime period in a heated 1-1 quarterfinal game with 11th-seeded Con-Val on Monday, Oct. 30, Doucette said she told her players they were the better team, they only needed to “take it to them.”

“I was tired of them hurting my players,” Doucette said.

A minute later, the Generals landed the fatal blow.

Before Doucette even got a chance to set her watch to time the second overtime, Kaylin Bull put a shot on net from inside the box, gathered the rebound as the Con-Val goalkeeper hit the ground and pushed the ball over the goal line to give No. 3 John Stark an exciting 2-1 win and a berth in the Class I semifinals, schedule for Wednesday, Nov. 1 against No. 2 Hanover at Stellos Stadium in Nashua.

The victory was the Generals’ 12th straight after closing the regular season with 10 in a row and dispatching Fall Mountain, 3-0, in the first round. The semifinal appearance was also the school’s first in more than a decade.

Yet, as often as the Stark players had imagined winning a first-round and quarterfinal game ­ the first for any current player ­ they never thought it would happen like this.

Employing the persistent attack that worked so well during the regular season, Stark scored within the first four minutes after Joan Hamel fed freshman Lauren Maklin, who whipped a shot from outside the left side of the box for a 1-0 lead.

But after senior center midfielder Meg Sawyer, who tried to play through a pulled leg muscle, was forced to leave the contest, Stark’s transition game broke down, allowing Con-Val, which upset Bow, 3-2, in the first round, to apply pressure throughout the rest of the half and into the second.

Con-Val finally broke through roughly 10 minutes into the second frame when, off a looping corner kick, a shot slipped past goalkeeper Josi Heer to tie the match, 1-1.

The game regressed into a dump-and-run affair from there, each team booming the ball up the field to streaking forwards where both squads came dangerously close to scoring. Yet it wasn’t until Doucette said her players “came out on fire” to start the second overtime that the game was decided.

Heer made six saves for Stark, including two in a row during a frantic period in the second half’s waning moments, and Sam Aucoin and freshmen Alyssa Charest stepped up in Sawyer’s place to help propel the team to victory.

“This was our goal from the beginning,” said Bull, one of eight seniors. “At first, our goal was to win the first round of the playoffs at home and obviously we’ve gone way past that.”