EASTHAMPTON — Back on Sept. 12, the Easthampton and Mahar boys soccer teams played to a competitive 0-0 draw in a physical game up in Orange.

Something had to give in Part II at Nonotuck Park on Wednesday afternoon.

In the first half, the Senators played the Eagles evenly step-for-step for about as close to 40 minutes as it gets, but a 10-second lapse with about 13 minutes to go gave Easthampton a small window to strike – and the Eagles took advantage.

Freshman Younes Oulbied received a through ball from Brayden O’Connor, who dribbled his way up the right side before finding an angle to Oulbied. When Oulbied turned as he took a touch to settle the pass, there was nobody between him and the goal. He fired a shot over the out-stretched arms of Mahar keeper Brayden Gates and in for a goal.

That one defensive breakdown killed the Senators’ near-perfect first half, and Easthampton took control in the second – with Oulbied adding a second score, doubling the lead – to earn a 2-0 victory on its home pitch.

“What we see more than anything else are flashes of greatness,” said Mahar head coach Dan Guertin, whose team fell to 0-7-1 with the loss. “In that first half, we played great for 39 minutes, but lost our mark for about 10 seconds. The kid was sitting on the 12 completely unmarked. You take that out, that’s a 0-0 half and the game is maybe different. But you can’t leave a kid unmarked at the 12.”

Easthampton was relentless in the second 40 minutes. Outside of a few outlier Senators chances, the ball remained in the Eagles’ attacking third for most of the half. Yet still, they couldn’t find a way to put the ball in the back of the net despite several quality chances to do so.

Then Oulbied got loose behind the Mahar back line, and Jason Sigda sent through a flawless ball that split a pair of Mahar defenders and rolled into the box where Oulbied had a clean look on goal.

A left-footed boot beat Gates on the weak side, even with Oulbied’s left cleat being untied. The score with just over 20 minutes remaining jumped the lead to 2-0 and never changed.

“We did a pretty good job of keeping our width, not trying to do too much and keeping it simple, which is what we’ve been talking about in practice,” Easthampton head coach Andrew Lawrence said. “I’m proud of them for using our shape and trusting everybody out there.”

The two tallies from Oulbied put him in the team lead for goals scored. And he’s only a freshman.

“Besides knowing how to finish and where he is on the field, I love how physical he is,” Lawrence said of Oulbied. “No matter how big a defender is, he isn’t afraid to get in there and fight for the ball. Throughout the year he’s really developed.”

The Eagles are a young team littered with underclassmen who contribute with Oulbied a prime example. They now sit at 5-4-1 this year, and each win has increased the confidence in their youth to believe that they’re capable of hanging with anyone.

Easthampton’s shocking 1-0 win over western Mass. power Frontier a dozen days ago was part of a three-game winning streak, and Lawrence’s bunch has started to drink the Kool-Aid.

“Wins like this are huge,” Lawrence said. “We have a lot of young guys, and so getting the positive feedback with these results is huge for us. Our feelings are susceptible to how each game goes; they kind of dictate our mood. So these wins are huge for us, and they give our young guys confidence.”

The same can be said for Guertin’s group. Mahar’s entire defense consists of underclassmen, and the Sens even had 12-year old Robbie Farrow in the starting lineup on Wednesday as well as a goalie (Gates) who started playing the position last week.

A lot of the season has been trial and error for Mahar, trying to figure out combinations that work and plug the right pieces into place. Guertin understands that success may not be measured by the number in the win column like some of his previous teams, but he’s still enjoyed the process of watching his young crew grow.

“Considering the kid in goal hasn’t played goalie for more than five days, I’d say he’s done a pretty decent job,” Guertin said. “It’s a young group. The main thing is we want to show progress. We have a lot of kids who haven’t played varsity before, and I literally started a 12-year old today… We’re starting to do some things right. At the beginning of the year, we were losing 7-0, 6-1, and now we’re at the point where we have something to play for in the second half.”

Mahar (0-7-1) hosts South Hadley on Friday at 4 p.m. still in search of its first victory of 2024.

Easthampton (5-4-1) travels to Frontier on Friday looking to sweep the season series with the Redhawks. Kickoff is scheduled for 4 p.m. in South Deerfield.