Burlington Girls' Lacrosse Can't Hold Off Wilmington

It was a close game but not quite the finish the seniors were looking for on senior day.

The girls’ lacrosse team celebrated their seniors and their final home game of the season on Wednesday, but the Red Devils lost in an even match-up to Wilmington High School, 13-12.

“It was a great game,” said Burlington coach Katey Sullivan. “The seniors this year are fantastic. I started coaching them four years ago and they’ve just improved the program, they’ve improved themselves and I couldn’t have asked for them to do any better today.”

Rachel Joyce (two goals) slung in the game-tying score for Burlington with 1:38 remaining with a straight shot in front of the net, causing a time out to be called.

“We talked about staying in the game,” Sullivan said. “It’s hot, people are tired, but (we talked about) staying positive, scoring some goals, trying to be faster and stronger as the time went on and (Wilmington) got tired.”

But the Red Devils were not able to control Wilmington freshman Rachael Mara as she scored the Wildcats’ game-winner, the team’s 13th goal, with under a minute to play, giving her team a one-goal advantage.

Then with the ball back for one final shot at a tie, Burlington drew a penalty, allowing Wilmington (7-10) the final possession where they ran out the clock.

“We played Wilmington before, they beat us before,” Sullivan said. “We knew that if we played well it would be an evenly matched game, it would be anyone’s game if we were on today and as far as I’m concerned we were on.

“It came down to the last 45 seconds of the game.”

The match saw seven ties in the first half alone.

Just like Mara finished the game for Wilmington, she started it by scoring the game’s first goal in the opening minute of play. She ran up the right side, into the middle and straight up in the crease for the shot.

Burlington then took a two-goal advantage after Kat Trahan (three goals) fired a bouncing shot and Jean Hanafin (four goals) rushed from the right win for the score.

“(Jean) does a great job for us,” Sullivan said. “She’s our leading scorer this season so we can always count on her to go out and score some goals.”

Play continued in a see-saw matter.

Amanda Keane scored for Wilmington, running perpendicular to the goal, swinging her stick to the right, making it 2-all. Then Burlington took a 3-2 lead only until Wilmington tied it 3-all.

For the remainder of the first, Trahan made two more goals, Meg Packard pitched in two and Joyce and another Burlington player each contributed one goal. For Wilmington, Mara threw in two, while Kristyn Callahan and Holly Niemiece each scored once.

The Red Devils held their largest lead going into the half, up 9-7, as Packard scored two to break the 7-all tie.

Wilmington was fast to start the second, coming back to tie it 9-all. Then Hannafin scored a jumping goal to take a 10-9 lead, but only for a short second as the Wildcats threw in two for an 11-10 advantage.

Packard scored her third of the game to tie it 11-all after Burlington missed a handful of attempts in the crease; her shot finally going through Wilmington’s hot defense.

Then Keane worried the Red Devils as she put the Wildcats up 12-11 by scoring a on a jumper with only a few minutes left in the game.

Burlington wasn’t able to get another goal, and with Wednesday’s loss, the team’s second in-a-row after falling to Lexington 17-6 on Tuesday, the Red Devils finish their season 6-14.

Neither Burlington nor Wilmington earned a State Tournament bid.

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