PARIS — Four-game winning streaks are rare for Oxford Hills Comprehensive High School boys’ soccer.

Put it this way: Late September sunsets while the thermometer is still hovering around 75 degrees come along more frequently.

Those anomalies merged pleasantly for the Vikings on Tuesday evening in a 3-2 KVAC victory over Waterville at Gouin Athletic Complex.

There was a more familiar nip in the air when the Vikings moved ahead to stay, on a pretty goal by Harrison Turner with 17:47 remaining.

Oxford Hills (4-4) regained possession off a Waterville defender’s foot after an Ian Vail throw-in.

Beauchesne, a sophomore striker on a team dominated by 13 seniors, spotted Turner one-on-one with a Purple Panthers defender and led him with a textbook through-ball from midfield.

Turner beat his man to the bouncing ball, about halfway between the cage and the flag, and booted a slow roller past charging Waterville goalkeeper Zach Disch for the game-winner.

“It’s that quick transition,” Beauchesne said. “(Turner) made a hell of a nice run.”

He could have said the same about the entire team, which has taken care of business the last two weeks after an 0-4 start against the meat-and-potatoes of Eastern Class A.

Oxford Hills shut out Erskine, Cony and Skowhegan prior to this hard-fought triumph.

“I think it’s the longest win streak in at least nine years, since Jeff Benson became athletic director.,” Oxford Hills coach Chris Morin said. “It’s them. They do all the work. They’ve worked hard over the years.”

Beauchesne and Connor Beebe joined Turner with goals for the Vikings, who were challenged with enough ups-and-downs to resurrect those doubts of the past.

Prior to Turner’s goal, both times Oxford Hills scored, Waterville (1-7) answered.

Beebe’s blast from 25 yards put the Vikings on top in the third minute of the game. John Terhune authored the Waterville reply, snapping Oxford Hills’ shutout streak of more than 260 consecutive minutes with help from Max Brown.

Beauchesne restored the Vikings’ advantage with 5:05 remaining in the half.

Nick Record, who had enjoyed two previous opportunities from the right corner, made the third time a charm by dishing back to Beauchesne. He one-touched the ball around the Waterville player to himself before finding the lower left corner of the cage.

“We just believe,“ Oxford Hills senior goalie Aaron Crockett said. “We’ve improved since the beginning of the year. Through team building and stuff, chemistry has gone up.”

Crockett guarded the first-half lead with seven saves, many of them in diving fashion.

“This is his first year as a varsity goalie. He’d never played a varsity soccer game,” Morin said. “We had kids ahead of him. He’s stepped in this year, and today he held us in the first half. He made some nice saves.”

Waterville solved Crockett one more time to pull even with 21:35 remaining in regulation.

Brown’s long throw-in from the right side found Zach Costello, who set up Jake French for the equalizer.

Oxford Hills learned its lesson from earlier in the game and didn’t retreat into a defensive shell after Turner’s go-ahead goal.

Disch was injured on the play. Brown moved from the midfield to the net. Oxford Hills forced the substitute to make five saves down the stretch and narrowly missed the crossbar with several more bids.

“A lot of times when we’ve gotten in trouble in the past, it’s been a matter of closing the game. I remember last year we lost two-goal leads, lost three-goal leads,” Beauchesne said. “This time it’s all about playing our game through the whole thing. We’ve gotten trapped in our end in the second half too much and lost some bad games. This time we stuck to what we do.”

Three consecutive road contests against fellow contenders Lawrence, Brunswick and Messalonskee will test the Vikings’ newfound prosperity.

“We’ve got a brutal schedule. We might have another rough stretch,” Morin cautioned. “If I get one of those, I’ll be happy.”

Beauchesne sees it less conservatively.

“We’ve got them next time,” he said. “This is a nice confidence booster in the middle of the year for when we hit these teams again.”

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