Girls Lacrosse Strikes out Woburn in Tourney Opener

It’s that time of year when every game can be your last – tournament time.

On Tuesday, it was the last game for No. 14 Woburn High School as the girls lacrosse team (10-11) was defeated 13-5 by No. 3 Concord-Carlisle High School (15-3) in the opening round of the North Division 1 tournament.

“(I’m) really pleased with the first half,” said CCHS coach Paul Morrison. “We came out strong, we dominated the game. We controlled the ball, which is what we set out to do.”

And dominate in the first half Concord-Carlisle did. The Patriots earned most of the face-offs, driving the ball to the net, and earned a 9-0 lead over the Tanners. There shots were pretty straight forward and in tight to the crease against Woburn’s goalie Alex Varoutsos.

Eight Patriots scored in Tuesday’s game and Morrison had praise for every player.

Rebecca Olsen led her team with three goals. Senior captain Jamie Potter, senior captain Lindsay Cook, Sophie Tilles and Jessie Castelline each recorded two goals and one assist. Josie Morrison added one goal and one assist. And both Courtney McCauley and Alexa Barrett had one assist.

“I want to point out strong performances by … Lindsay Cook and Jamie Potter, they play all three zones of the field, they cause turnovers, they made interceptions, they had assists, and that’s the leadership you need as we go on deeper into the tournament,” Morrison said. “(And) Caitlin Guiney is always really steady back there - she’s a cornerback on defense.”

Two of Concord-Carlisle’s best goals of the game came in the first half and were scored by McCauley and Olsen.

McCauley put her team up 7-0 around the 10-minute marker when she grabbed an interception from a Tanner pass just before the blue line. She then turned around and rushed up the right side of the field for the goal.

“Courtney McCauley had her best game of the season today,” Morrison said.

Olsen’s goal was an open shot at 5:46 from slight left of the net. Concord-Carlisle was running up the right side with the ball and Olsen received a high pass for a jumping score as Varoutsos couldn’t turn quick enough for the save.

It looked as though Concord-Carlisle was going to finish out the first half blanking Woburn 9-0, but with 2:02 left in the first, the Tanners scored their first goal on Patriot goalie Melissa Mariano (five saves). Woburn held the ball at the blue line and then passed in the middle of the field for the charging goal.

“Melissa Mariano, after missing a month in goal, she started the first half (and) played a great game,” Morrison said.

Woburn continued its momentum in the second half. The Tanners were outscored 8-1 in the first, but evened it up 4-all in the second half.

The Tanners added two early scores to make it a 9-3 game. But only a couple minutes later was a Woburn player ejected after receiving a red card for hitting a Concord-Carlisle player in the back of the leg with her stick.

With Woburn down a girl, Concord-Carlisle put in two scores to take an 11-3 lead. But then Woburn put a goal past Patriot’s second-half goalie Greta White (3 saves) with 14:54 to play.

“(Woburn) was down a couple of players and I think that we kind of lost our concentration. Who do you mark because now they’re down? We should have a better strategy when we’re up players. Who takes two?” Morrison said. “I think that we will coach them tomorrow, if we get into that situation, this is what we’ll do, this is how we’ll break it down, but overall I think the biggest challenge for us is keeping our concentration when we have a big lead.”

The Patriots were struggling to score – just as Woburn was early on. They were taking shots, but Varoutsos was defending as needed, saving attempts in the crease.

“I thought (Varoutsos) did a good job,” Morrison said. “She made some tough saves. She was tough up high, she stopped us a couple of times.

“The thing that worries me is, the second half we didn’t play a (solid) half and this is kind of a pattern we’ve been in now for the past few weeks,” said Morrison.

“So when you play a higher seed, a 14 seed, it’s going to be a nail biter because we need to find a way to be stronger in the second half and my strategy has been to get girls off the field, get them rested up, and we did that more than we did in our Framingham game from last week, and we just need to continually work in the second half with the concentration that we do in the first half.

“I think if we do, we’re going to be very successful,” continued Morrison.

And the Patriots were resuming their concentration in the final minutes of the second half, adding two more goals the remainder of the game, with the final one at 2:35.

For Woburn, Shannon Maguire scored four goals and Natalie McGuire added one.

“Their coach has done a nice job of that team,” Morrison said, speaking of Woburn coach Maggie Meagher. “It’s her first year at Woburn, she coached Reading for a while and Reading’s a strong program.

“She’s only going to make them better. They’ll be better for this experience and hopefully our younger players, our juniors and sophomores and freshmen that we have on the team will be stronger from this as well going forward.”

Morrison said that he anticipates Concord-Carlisle’s next opponent to be No. 6 Framingham High School.

“They’ve won the North Division 1 title seven years in a row, so it’d be a great opportunity for us to be the team that sends them home for the first time without making the final.”