SOUTH CHINA — In a region usually dominated by Penobscot Valley Conference teams, the Kennebec Valley Athletic Conference has produced some of the top teams in Class B North this year — and two of them met here Thursday.

It took a while for the goals to come, but when they did, it was Erskine Academy that put more past Gardiner in a 2-1 home victory. The win strengthened the Eagles’ hold on second place in the B North standings and snapped red-hot Gardiner’s seven-game winning streak.

“This was a big win, for sure,” said Erskine head coach Mike Falla. “You look at the standings, and they’re so tight — there’s no reason they couldn’t be the ones in second and us the ones in sixth. We knew we were going to have our hands full, and our girls were ready and had their minds right.”

Erskine’s Kelsie Dunn and Kinsey Ulmer scored in quick succession after some decent chances failed to produce any scoring over the first 60 minutes. Catherine Mansir found the net for Gardiner with just over six minutes to play.

“We had a plan, and we had the team fired up,” said Erskine senior Brooke Blais. “We had to get (the ball) up and work as a team in general, get those short passes in and move forward altogether and not just here and there.”

Erskine’s Sadie Pierce put Gardiner on notice early, hitting the side netting from just inside the box after just four minutes. That seemed to wake up the Tigers, who forced the Eagles (9-3-1) into a pair of key clearances at the 13- and 18-minute marks.

After an uneventful last 20 minutes of the first half and first 15 minutes of the second, Ellie Giampetruzzi nearly scored for Erskine but her solid free kick was saved in the bottom-right corner. With 17:39 remaining, though, the Eagles broke through as Dunn scored to make it 1-0.

Three minutes later, Gardiner (8-4-1) saw a golden scoring chance go to waste as a header from close range was sent high of the net. Erskine made the Tigers pay immediately as Ulmer found open space down the right side, rounded goalkeeper Adela Ricker and doubled the home team’s lead.

Gardiner played like a team with its back against the fall following the goal, and the Tigers got a lifeline with just over six minutes left when Mansir pounced to halve the deficit. Yet Erskine didn’t panic following the goal, limiting the visitors to only a single push into the final third to close out the win.

“The last 15 minutes of the game, it was obviously about maintaining that two-goal lead,” Falla said. “(Gardiner junior) Sophia Marrone, she can take a game over in less than five minutes, so we changed our formation into something more defensive to be sure she was taken care of. It worked out well.”

Erskine had a razor-thin margin over Oceanside and Hermon for second place in the Heal point standings entering the game, but stretched that advantage to 10 points with the win. Gardiner moved up in the standings despite the loss, leapfrogging Winslow to take over fifth.

The game was a rematch of an earlier encounter between Erskine and Gardiner this season, won 4-1 by the Tigers on Sept. 9. Whereas senior Pierce felt the Eagles lacked cohesiveness in that game, she could tell her team had a better grip on this one as it unfolded.

“We didn’t have our butts on fire (in that first game),” Pierce said. “We knew what was happening this time, and we knew who to mark.”