New Haven Register (New Haven, CT)
Real goal getters
Grizzlies dominate in victory over SCC rival Cheshire
CHESHIRE — If the Guilford girls’ lacrosse team plays the way it did Friday night, it’s going to be a very hard team to beat.
The Grizzles
(11-2 and ranked seventh in the latest GametimeCT.com state poll), had scoring streaks of eight and six goals en route to a surprisingly easy 17-3 victory over Cheshire in a battle between the top two teams in the Southern Connecticut Conference.
It was the eighth time in 13 outings that Guilford scored 17 or more goals and the sixth time the Grizzles held their opponents to three or less goals. They beat Cheshire 17-10 on April 20.
“I think we are a really deep team,” Wendy Epke said.
“We’ve had some really good competition to prepare us as we go towards the postseason and all the cylinders are starting to click for us.”
Guilford is the top seed in the SCC tournament with Cheshire second. The SCC final is May 27 at Strong Stadium in West Haven.
“We have a lot of strong sticks and have been working on our stickwork and shooting percentage,” Epke said. “We have to continue to work hard so when it comes to the postseason, we can execute.”
Guilford had three players who scored at least three times Friday night. The Grizzles were led by freshman Payton Root, who scored six times and added four assists.
“They were leaving the back side cut open a lot or they followed the girl around the crease and left one side open,” Root said. “If they covered that, they probably would have shut me down.”
“She has some ice water in her veins,” Guilford coach Wendy Epke said.
Meanwhile, Cheshire (10-4 and ranked 10th) never was able
to get any offense going whatsoever. And Rams’ coach Dan Warburton didn’t have any answers. No matter what he tried didn’t work.
“A learning experience — that’s too easy — it’s too cliché,” Warburton said. “They are a talented team and the way you stick with a team like that is you can’t get into a run and gun. You have to minimize them. The lesson today is you need to follow a game plan. If you don’t, things can go pretty bad.”
The plan for Cheshire when it had possession was to slow the game down and work the ball around the perimeter to get good shots.
“We were too stagnant and weren’t making strong passes,” Warburton said. “We were trying to shoot in five or 10 seconds instead of settling. I’m hoping it’s a wake-up call and we move forward and play better.”
Guilford also dominated the possession game, but that was to be expected as the Grizzles have Maddie Epke (three goals and three assists), who has already committed to play in college at Division I James Madison.
“It’s tough when they have Maddie Epke on the draw,” Warburton said. ‘She’s the best draw kid I’ve seen in 20 years. I’m not surprised by the possessions. It’s a problem for everyone.”
Guilford took a quick lead thanks to Epke on the draw. She fired a pass to Root just 16 seconds into the game to make it 1-0. Taylor Warburton scored just over a minute later to deadlock things at 1-1.
But from there on, it was all Guilford as they scored nine straight times to make it 9-1 with 7:54 to play in the first half. Warburton ended that streak with a goal with 4:53 to play before intermission.
The Grizzles scored the first six goals of the second half to take a 15-2 lead before Hannah Merritt stopped that streak.