Country Day beats Marian, 20-10

PONTIAC » The traditional roadblocks have been removed.

Now it’s just up to the Detroit Country Day Yellowjackets to continue the drive.

Country Day got one step closer to its first girls lacrosse regional title since 2006, beating one of those teams that had hounded them in the postseason, Birmingham Marian, by a 20-10 margin in Wednesday’s Division 2 regional semifinal.

That sends them back to the regional championship contest for a second straight season.

“It feels good. You know, last year, we made it to the regional final, but we ended in disappointment against Cranbrook,” Country Day coach Emma Kuehl said. “So, this year, it’s not only to get to the regional final, but to get to the state championship and — earn our way there, of course — but to get to that point, and try to take the whole thing.”

The Yellowjackets will face Stoney Creek in the regional championship match Friday at 5:30 p.m. at Pontiac Notre Dame Prep’s William Kozyra Alumni Field.

While Stoney Creek — which beat Notre Dame Prep, 19-12, in Tuesday’s regional semifinal — has never won a regional crown, it’s been a long while since the Yellowjackets last hoisted the wooden mitten after winning a regional title.

In the 14 seasons since Country Day’s last regional title, no team has put the Yellowjackets out of the tournament more often than Cranbrook Kingswood — six times, four of those in the regional championship contest — including last year’s heartbreaking 14-13 loss in the regional title game.

In that same span, the Cranes have won a 10 regional crowns and a pair of state titles (2017 and 2018), and finished runner-up three other times. Marian’s put the Jackets out twice in the past four seasons, including 2019, en route to the Mustangs’ first D2 title-game appearance (Marian was in the D1 final in 2009 and 2015).

This time, though, it was Country Day beating Cranbrook, 15-10, in the first round of regionals last Thursday.

“Cranbrook is a great program. They always have been, and you know, they’re a big rival of ours, with Marian as well, they’re kind of right up the road. So that game in particular, the emotions are always very high in both squads. And I think during practice, in our lead up to the Cranbrook game, we worked on kind of stressful situations, I put the girls under pressure at practice to really work on handling that emotional level, and being able to perform under pressure,” Kuehl said, admitting it probably helped eliminate the possibility of a post-Cranbrook letdown by having another rival to face in the very next round.

“Yeah, it was a concern. And I think our game tonight wasn’t as complete as I as I wanted it to be. But yeah, we spent a lot of emotion in the Cranbrook game. So it is always a concern for a coach, you know that we kind of spend it all, you know, waste all that energy getting kind of riled up, and then the next game is a little flat. So, I think I wish that we were a little bit more consistent in the second half in this game, especially in the defensive end. But I think the girls responded well to that win. And, you know, we have our sights set on the next game. And so I think they responded really well — turned around really well, from a very competitive Cranbrook game.”

The Mustangs, though, wanted to test that theory, using a very methodical, ball-control offense at the start, and jumping out to a 2-0 lead on a pair of goals by senior captain Grace Rotter.

“We knew we were working against a lot of speed, and I’ve got some injuries. And so we just tried to move people around where we thought it would go well,” Marian coach Sherry Pifer said. “I think also that, you know, we’re a small team, and … our midfielders work really, really hard back and forth. So they get up to the attack, they like to slow it down and give themselves a rest and try and feel out where they can where they can make the biggest dent.”

It didn’t take long for the Yellowjackets to respond to the early deficit, ripping off 10 straight goals in the span of seven and a half minutes.

Sophomore Hadley Keating had three of her four goals in the streak, which put the Yellowjackets up 10-2 with 14:01 left first half. Marian’s Molly Banta scored off an intercepted pass to end the streak, but Country Day freshman Mary Pavlou sandwiched her second and third goals around Rotter’s third to give the Yellowjackets a 12-4 lead with 8:19 left.

Country Day scored the final four goals of the first half to lead 15-4 at the break.

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