Sunapee — In the end, the Sunapee High girls soccer team was the winner, 6-0, over Woodsville in Sunday’s NHIAA Division IV quarterfinal match. But the Lakers had to vary from their script to get the victory.

“Because of the slippery field conditions and the forecast for rain, we wanted to score early,” Sunapee coach Myles Cooney said.

Not only did the Lakers not score early, the game was scoreless through 33 minutes before the heavily favored Lakers whipped in four goals in the last seven minutes of the first half to advance to Thursday’s semifinals in Laconia.

Going to the semifinals has become a regular habit for the Lakers, who will be making their seventh straight trip to the final four, journeys thathave resulted in two state championships.

The Lakers are in the midst of another super season as the No, 1 seed at 16-0-1. Along the way, the Lakers have posted 11 shutouts and outscored the other team, 90-5.

“I think my girls were a bit psyched, coming here and taking on the No. 1 team,” Woodsville coach Anne Loud said.

Maybe so, and for more than a half hour, the ninth-seeded Engineers (8-9-1) hung in there.

“It did help that I shanked one,” said Sunapee senior Kate Frederick, who misfired on an early scoring opportunity.

Sunapee had other chances early as well. There were several seconds the Woodsville goal was wide open and the Lakers had the ball in the offensive zone when goalkeper Kenzie Dennis came out to make a save on a roller. She fumbled the ball a bit and it rolled away from her. She chased after it and never did catch up to it, but the Lakers could never get clear for a good shot.

“There were some nerves,” said Frederick. “After all, this was a tournament game.”

What eventually got the Lakers going was a surprise goal. Junior Jackie Balch had a throw-in from the side, maybe 30 yards out. It was just a simple bouncer to senior Sydney Clark, who trapped the ball and shot on net, the banana ball slicing away from Dennis and ending the Lakers’ drought. The next three goals before the half and and the first one in the second half came from prolific junior scorer Maddy Austin.

“Once they got that first goal, I knew we were in trouble,” said Loud who was disappointed with the loss, but pleased with the season. “We’re pretty young and we had a tough start (won only one of their first seven games), but finished strong. We just paid the price of inexperience.”

While the Engineers were youthful, the Lakers brought a squad into the 2016 season that graduated only two players after losing to a tough Derryfield team in the 2015 semis. And one of those players returning was Austin, who is sniper-like in that the opposition can never find her until it’s too late. Austin scored the second goal when she knocked in a rebound of a shot taken by Hannah Cooney. Austin then scored goals three and four unassisted, her final goal of the first half coming with just three seconds to play. Austin then got her fourth goal six minutes into the second half, with Mary Grzanna getting the sixth Laker tally on a long shot with eight minutes to go.

Sunapee finished with a 17-3 edge in shots on goal and 5-1 in corners.