NORTH SMITHFIELD — For nearly 70 minutes of scoreless soccer it appeared as though the North Smithfield girls’ team had a chance to pull off an upset over top-seeded Tiverton in the Division-Three playoffs.

But the Tigers’ perseverance paid off when captains Victoria Pierce and Sam William combined on a goal off a corner kick with 10:41 left.

“Finally,” Pierce said. “We do things last minute. We’re a second-half team. We knew we needed to get a goal. We tried out hardest to get pressure up.

“Sam William, thank God she was there. She had an amazing goal.”

Pierce lofted the ball from the left corner to right side of the penalty area where Williams crashed the net and had the ball carom off her lower right leg past Northmen keeper Sidra Ethier.

“Once they get settled they can score,” said Tiverton coach Chris Messenger. “But not until. They get a rhythm almost. And I like it.”

Once the goal was scored the floodgates opened. The Tigers’ Erin Rodrigues, Lauren Hill and Jenna Pare each scored a goal in the final six minutes to give the Tigers a 4-0 triumph and a berth in the championship game.

Tiverton will take on Burrillville, the lone team to hand the Tigers a setback this season, Sunday, Nov. 8, at 4 p.m., at Rhode Island College.

“They will be very, very tough,” Messenger said. “We didn’t like the offside trap at all. We were very bad at it and we didn’t learn our lesson. We’ll be practicing that again.”

After a lackluster first half in which Ethier made four saves and Tiverton keeper Erin Goulart made one, none of the testing variety, play became a little more intense the second 40 minutes. Tiverton, subbing two or three players at a time, began to wear down the Northmen. For the most part, play was on the North Smithfield defensive side of the field.

“I started doing 18 into the game in the regular season and I said I was going to continue right through the playoffs,” Messenger said. “I wasn’t going to change things up. The kids go in at normal times, 10 minutes in, 10 minutes out. I can go deeper but...”

Tiverton also made some tactical moves at halftime and switched personnel around, another key in sparking the offense.

“We changed our formation and we got it done,” said Pierce. “Sam went forward and I played in the middle with Erin Rodrigues. We worked the ball in the middle because the first half we lost the middle. We gained possession and we got some stuff started.”

Pierce was the main player who got stuff started. She assisted on the first three Tiverton goals.

First she arced the corner kick where it needed to be. Second, she fired a shot that Ethier dove to deflect near the left post and Rodrigues was there to put it home. Third, she put the ball in play from the left sideline with a long flip-throw that bounced over the heads a trio of North Smithfield defenders. The ball landed near Hill and she simply headed it into the open left corner.

“I was flipping all game and nothing was happening. Finally they got their feet, head, body, whatever on the ball and it went in,” Pierce said.

Megan Raposa got a pass to Pare and she put it home from in close with the clock frozen at 2:00 for the final score of the game.

“I was very nervous,” said Messenger. “Last time we played them we had two goals in the first half. I was hoping it would get the tension off. But the tension was enough until the very end.

“That’s all right I’m happy. I’m very happy to go back to the finals.”