LEE, Mass. -- You would be hard pressed to find a coach more satisfied with a 3-0 loss than Lee girls soccer coach Lauren Finnegan was on Friday.

 

Of course, for context, you’d have to understand that her Wildcats team was playing a Palmer squad that plays in a higher division and that played to a 5-3 loss against a Granby team that beat Lee, 8-0, earlier this season.

 

“I’m super proud of these girls,” Finnegan said. “And they’re happy. Look at them. You’d think they had won.

 

“I think this is a huge game for us. It’s a great turn in the right direction at the right time of the season.”

 

It got off to a terrible start when Palmer’s Madelyn Theriault scored nine seconds into the game.

 

When the Panthers added another goal 10 minutes later, it looked like things were going to go from bad to worse for the Wildcats (4-5).

 

But Lee found its composure and held Palmer off the scoreboard until midway through the second half.

 

A big part of that credit goes to senior captain Brianna Hawley, who made 18 saves.

 

“Brianna, who got hurt in the game on Wednesday, didn’t even practice yesterday,” Finnegan said. “She played great.”

 

Lee managed just one scoring opportunity in the first half, a shot from the left wing and outside the 18 that Palmer keeper Emma Martin scooped up.

 

In the second half, however, the Wildcats were able to put considerably more pressure on Martin and the Palmer defense, drawing her off her line to shut down a number of scoring chances.

 

In the 49th minute, Lee’s Lydia Simone just missed a connection on Ann Macchi’s cross from the right wing inside the 18.

 

Later in the half, the Wildcats had a pretty passing sequence that ended when Martin came out to take the ball away. Shannon Finnegan crossed the ball from the left wing for Hailey Bartini, who centered it to an attacker who was met by the charging keeper.

 

“They’re a phenomenal team,” Lauren Finnegan said of Palmer. “We knew that coming in. I thought we stepped up to their level.

 

“They played hard. They played physical. We played hard. We played physical.”

 

Finnegan hopes to see her team take that same style into Monday’s game against Commerce as the Wildcats make a run at the Western Mass tournament.

 

“”I’m really thrilled,” she said of Friday’s performance. “You would think I had won. We won on Wednesday, and I wasn’t happy. We lost today, and we’re all acting like … It was great.”