BUCKFIELD — The number 3 seems to work for Brittany Carrier.

Carrier, who wears jersey No. 3, scored three goals for top-seeded Buckfield in a 5-1 Class D South girls soccer semifinal win Thursday over No. 5 Old Orchard Beach.

Carrier has scored 43 goals this season for the Bucks, who advance to next week’s regional final where they will face the winner of Friday’s game between No. 2 St. Dominic and No. 3 Monmouth Academy.

Cora Brewster and Chloee Bennett added one goal apiece for the Bucks (14-1).

“We play as a unit,” first-year Buckfield coach Annette Caldwell said. “Everybody would love to have a Brittany Carrier, I mean, she’s amazing, and she saves us so many times, but it’s not just her. We have the Taylor Harvey, we have the Chloee Bennett and Cora Brewster who (both) scored tonight from outside, and so if it was just Brittany that we had, we wouldn’t have had the season that we’ve had.”

Carrier said the Bucks knew they had to come in strong against the Seagulls (5-10).

“We definitely expected them to play hard, and we knew we had to come and play really hard,” Carrier said.

Brewster opened the scoring 10 minutes, 10 seconds into the first half, off an assist from Cori Merrill. Caldwell said Brewster did a “great job staying positive” despite injuries to Harvey and Kallista Stearns during the game.

“The good Lord blessed me with high energy, and hopefully it falls out to them, because we need it this time of season,” Caldwell said. “We just need it; if we don’t bring it, we can’t take teams like (Old Orchard) for granted.”

Old Orchard Beach’s Lea Alivizatos tied the game off an assist from Grace Drown just three minutes later.

Carrier took over with goals at the 17- and the 23-minute marks, both on low shots off of breakaways, giving Buckfield a 3-1 lead.

“Our team’s really becoming united together, and we’re passing,” Carrier said. “We’re just finishing on the opportunities.”

Chloee Bennett added the Bucks’ fourth goal of the first half.

Carrier scored her third goal 14 seconds into the second half, which she said was fueled by the “pumped up” energy coming out of halftime. While that goal completed the scoring, Carrier said it gave the Bucks energy to finish the game strong.

Old Orchard Beach’s loss Thursday marks the fourth consecutive season the Seagulls have lost in the D South semis. They lost to St. Dominic in 2023 and Maranacook in ’21 and ’22.

“It’s good to get there, but the hump is to get to the finals, because once you get to the regional finals, anything can happen,” Old Orchard Beach coach Heath Floyd said. “The goal is always to get there. We seem to get to this great game, but everyone we play against in this is usually the team that goes to the states. So there’s a little consolation in that …”

Floyd said the Seagulls have only three seniors — Sara Alemtsehay, Tessa Ferguson and Grace Drown — compared with Buckfield’s 11.

“We need two or three more kids with some soccer experience,” he said. “We’re young, we’ve got 10 sophomores, six freshmen, so I could see us being in the same situation (as Buckfield) hopefully next year against somebody to get over that hump.”

He added that Thursday’s game was the best the Seagulls have played against the Bucks — who won the teams’ two regular season meetings, 5-1 and 7-0. Both teams put five shots on goal in the opening half, but the difference, Floyd noted, was Buckfield finished on four.

“We just missed some opportunities, but with that Carrier and Bennett, and all them, they just don’t miss,” Floyd said. “They finish on their chances, and that’s what we got to do. That was really the difference all year, they’ve been they making their shots and we’ve had trouble putting the ball in the net.”

Caldwell said Buckfield priority before the D South final — Tuesday at Winthrop Grade School — will be getting everyone back to full strength and over illnesses and injuries. She added that Buckfield’s lineup shifted after Harvey and Stearns were pulled, and that’s something she will have to keep in mind when making the regional final lineup.

Buckfield reached the D South final last year but lost to St. Dom’s 1-0.

“I’m going to be talking to some of my coaching peers to give me advice, since this is my first year, so I think I’ll stay positive,” Caldwell said. “I really feel like the good Lord has blessed us, and he’s going to continue to bless us, and we’ve just got stay positive and keep being who we are.”