Myles Culley caught fire and finished with a record-tying season.
Culley scored five times and led the Waynflete Flyers to a 6-1 victory over Fort Kent in the Class C boys soccer state championship, the school’s fourth in a row, at Hampden Academy on Saturday.
“It’s amazing,” Waynflete coach Brandon Salway said. “We’ve had great players that are committed and enjoy playing together. It’s a quality group of kids that are invested. We play a very tough schedule that gets us prepared.”
With five goals on the day, Culley reached 52 on the season, tying the Maine state record, according to Salway.
From kickoff, Waynflete came out firing.
The Flyers began the game on an aggressive attack that resulted in a quick goal from Jacob Woodman just 72 seconds into the game.
The goal came off of a corner, and when the ball was kicked into the penalty box, a rebound came out to the foot of Woodman, who finished it in the back of the net.
Fort Kent played on its heels for much of the first half, with goalkeeper Drew Deschane making eight saves in the first 40 minutes.
With 16:30 left in the first half Fort Kent’s offense started to click. The Warriors had great build up play that resulted in a hard shot from Keegan Cyr before a save from Lincoln Smith. Cyr had two shots on goal in the first half.
Waynflete got possession back and with 12:18 left, Culley scored to double the Flyers’ lead to 2-0.
“The boys got into their heads and thought they didn’t have a chance to come back when they were down,” Fort Kent head coach Kalusha Kotes said. “It’s a mental thing. I think we started to lose it mentally and that’s when the goals came.”
In the second half, Fort Kent’s Ethan Daigle scored with 21:50 left in the game and it was a sign of life for the Warriors.
Then Culley took the entire game over.
He scored 58 seconds later to answer for the Flyers, making it 3-1.
“There were opportunities and we stretched them out a bit,” Salway said. “Credit to them, they made it 2-1 but we answered. This group has been awesome and when another team scores, they answer back. We settled down and played our game.”
Culley scored three more times to finish the game 6-1.
The senior forward scored from the middle, the right side, from a free kick from 25 yards out, anywhere he had an opening was where he was going to shoot.
Fort Kent couldn’t handle the Waynflete attack, but Kotes said he was proud of his team’s season.
“The issue was we weren’t quick to defend after we scored,” Kotes said. “That’s when we started to lose it. It’s a good season and I’m proud of them. One of our goals was to play all the games and we did that. At the end of the day somebody had to win and somebody had to lose. It’s sad we had to lose but we are proud of our season.”