Slow start, steamy finish for Carroll
COLLEGEVILLE >> The Archbishop Carroll girls lacrosse team shook off a sluggish start Saturday morning at a steamy Perkiomen Valley High School and turned a two-goal lead into a 10-goal advantage by scoring eight unanswered goals as the undefeated Patriots took a convincing 21-9, win over Villa Maria in the quarterfinal round of the PIAA 2A lacrosse bracket.
Archbishop Carroll will now play the winner of the Bishop Shanahan vs Twin Valley game, Tuesday at a time and site to be determined.
Archbishop Carroll, (14-0) the District 12 champion, did get on the scoreboard first when Julia Bascino scored from in front to give the Patriots a 1-0 lead. But, after 10 minutes of play Archbishop Carrol had only a 6-4 lead on the Hurricanes (16-7) as Villa Maria answered the Carroll goal barrage.
But, the Patriots, behind a stellar six-goal performance by senior Keri Barnett, scored the next
eight goals of the game, dominating the face-offs, and at halftime the Patriots had a 14-4 advantage on the Hurricanes.
“We were a little slow starting today,” Barnett said. “But, we have been working really hard on speed drills in practice and not gets us to fight through the tough times. It was hot out there today but we picked things up after they made it 6-4. We started to get a lot of goals in transition and winning the faceoffs was a huge part of that.”
Barnett, a West Chester University commit took a pretty feed from Kelly Mottice to make it a 7-4 Carroll lead. It was the first of Mottice’s four goals for the game. Brooke Wilson fired a rocket from about 10 yards out to make it a 8-4 game and the Hurricanes were having trouble matching the Patriots speed.
Archbishop Carroll then completely took over the game with six goals in the final nine minutes of the first half to give the Patriots a commanding 14-4 lead at halftime. Sarah Durham scored the last goal of the first half on a nice pass from the left side from Julia Bascino who had three assists to go along with two goals.
“Winning the draws for us was a big plus,” Archbishop Carroll head coach Lorraine Beers said. “Keri is just so strong for us doing that and she is just super. She scores, does the draws and we even need her to play defense. Once she got going they all seemed to get going. Villa Maria was very deliberate when they had possession and that was giving us trouble so winning the draws was huge for us.”
The Hurricanes got their second wind at the start of the second half and scored twice. They scored once on a goal by Margie Carden, who led Villa Maria with three goals, and a goal from behind the net by Alex Touey to close the gap to 15-6. But, the Patriots came right back as Brooke Wilson intercepted a Hurricanes pass at midfield and went all the way down the right side and fired a blistering shot into the backlog the net and Archbishop Carroll had a 16-6 lead.
Two more Archbishop Carroll goals, one from Barnett, her sixth of the game, and Mottice took a pretty feed from Bascino and the Patriots had complete control at 18-6, and started looking ahead to Tuesday’s semifinal round while the Hurricanes season came to close.
“It feels really great and special to be going to the semis,” Barnett said. “Especially since we lost all of last season to see all hard work that we put in come to this is a great feeling.”
Villa Maria head coach Allie Sweeney said that losing many draws hurt her team but she was very proud of their effort.
“Draws are such a big part of our sport,” Sweeney said. “Once you score then it goes to a 50-50 ball and we struggled a little this yearn that. It is not from lack of effort or anything and we have improved. I am so proud of these girls, especially the senior, we have 12 of them. This was a special group.”
Archbishop Carroll 21, Villa Maria 9