Young Old Lyme girls' lacrosse team beats Somers 16-7

Macione upgrades lacrosse schedule and ’Cats respond

Old Lyme — An eight-goal lead halftime lead quickly shrank to five for Old Lyme early in the second half of Saturday's girls' lacrosse game against Somers.

It's exactly those kinds of moments that Old Lyme head coach Emily Macione wants her team to face this season.

“When you do have the lead, you need to come out in the second half just as hot,” Macione said after a 16-7 win. “How do you do that? That's mental toughness. That's grit. That's, ‘alright, I want this win so bad that I'm going to do everything to get every single ball.

“We're trying to improve that, definitely. We have people who have that. It's making that the team mentality across the board.”

Sophomore Lydia Tinnerello had three goals and three assists and junior Anna Sather had two goals and two assists for Old Lyme.

Seniors Jordan Lewis and Bianca Tinnerello each added two goals and an assist, freshman Catharine Harrison scored twice, and junior Paige Britton had a goal and an assist.

The Wildcats (3-2) have played the unwilling role of the heartbroken, just-missed-again team in the CIAC Class S tournament the past few seasons.

They lost to eventual champion Stonington 12-11 with 1.7 seconds left in the 2014 semifinals.

Granby and Canton, respectively, ended Old Lyme's next two seasons in the semifinals. Both went on to win the title.

The Wildcats lost to New Fairfield in last year's quarterfinals, 12-11, but it was the closest game the Rebels had en route to winning the championship.

Macione set out to toughen up Old Lyme's nonconference schedule this year. It played Stonington, Waterford, Canton, Somers (the 2016 Class S runner-up) and defending Class M champion Branford last year. It has or will play all five again this spring.

Macione also sprinkled in New Fairfield this season.

“This is probably the most ambitious our-of-conference schedule that we've had in the five years that I've coached,” she said. “When you want to raise your game, you've got to play the best teams out there.

“It's good to for us to test ourselves early and see where were weak. If we don't do that, if you don't play tough teams, you can go all season thinking, ‘hey, we're doing all right.' Then you get into the state tournament where you see a lot of different, strong teams, teams that play really aggressive, that you didn't prepare for.”

Old Lyme played at New Fairfield and Branford over a four-day period. It got knocked around both times, losing to New Fairfield 103 on April 7 and to the Hornets 16-5 three days later.

“I like it,” Lydia Tinnerello said about the schedule. “I like having challenges in-conference and out-of-conference.”

Old Lyme has taken on this schedule with a young and green team, too.

It graduated 11 seniors, a pretty big loss for a small school. Sophomores Daisy Colvin, Sammy Owen and Lydia Tinnerello are the lone returning starters.

“I actually have way more confidence than I had last year,” Tinnerello said. “I was a freshman and I was scared to make mistakes. We're working together (this season), building everything back up.”

Macione said, “We're really pushing the mental game this year. Having grit, having mental toughness. If you make a mistake, then how are you recovering from that mistake? What are you doing to make yourself better after it?

“Mistakes are how you learn.” n.griffen@theday.com