Chatham Girls' Lacrosse Gets Back to Winning Ways

Facing Chatham—one of the elite teams in the state—already posed a difficult test for the West Essex girls lacrosse team Thursday afternoon.

But the departure of senior captains Sloane Serpe and goalie Jen Weissbach due to yellow cards in the final 10 minutes made that challenge even steeper.

Chatham immediately responded with seven straight goals to take command en route to a 16-7 win at Travis Field.

"You take out two of our biggest players, and it's going to be a rough transition for us," West Essex coach Jill Cosse said. "You know, Jen is taken out, and a couple minutes, later, five goals are scored against us. Katelyn [Brower], our backup goalie, was just kind of thrown into it, and it was hard to be prepared for that situation."

West Essex (5-4), which trailed 6-3 at halftime, kept pace to start the second half and pulled to within 9-6.

But Serpe, the team's top attack, was then yellow-carded when a referee thought her stick struck the head of one of the Cougars. Weissbach, displeased with the call, said something to herself that a referee overheard, and that resulted in a yellow card for the goalie as well.

The Cougars (11-1) scored immediately after the two captains were off the field and didn't stop. Chatham coach Deb Marriott pointed to her team's passing and communication as vital to the scoring spree.

Chatham's Kelsey Perselay seized control of the ball and passed off to Courtney Landolfe. Landolfe then found Kathryn Maiorano, who quickly scored, extending the lead for the Cougars, 14-6. 

"We like to work our transition game, and one of the things we weren't doing against Mendham, our last game, was communicating in the midfield," Marriott said. "So we knew we had to pick that up today and we communicated much better in the midfield."

A minute later, the teamwork continued. Jaclyn Leto sent the ball to Perselay, who passed back to Leto for a goal with five minutes left. Two minutes later, Leto scored again off a feed from Cat McCutcheon.  

"We played outstanding," Chatham captain Emma Ehler said. "Definitely a big step up from Mendham. And we showed them what we've got."

Knowledge of the Knights' talent had Chatham prepared for a tough game, which pushed the Cougars even further.

"Yesterday, we had a really tough focus practice," Chatham captain Kathryn Maiorano said. "Our mentality was, we have to step it up from our last game, be confident, go in and work as a team."

With the Cougars fired up following a second-half timeout and Serpe and Weissbach out of the game, the Knights were out of sync.

"It was a bit of a scrabble adjusting to Sloane and Jen taken out, it changed the pace of the game," Cosse said. "But this is how we learn. It was good to be thrown into that. We have a lot of sophomores and juniors on our team, and they have to learn to lead themselves when our captains, and two of our key players, are no longer here next year."

After the Knights lost two of their players, Chatham's focus on improving its midfield turned out to be crucial.

"The defensive and midfield definitely helped us," Ehler noticed. "At the beginning of the game, we were a little scrappy with our passes, but we made it up and doubled in the midfield, and that really helped us a lot."

West Essex finally ended Chatham's run—but only 45 seconds remained—when Natalie Cafone scored to make it 16-7.

Cosse said it was an experience the Knights should learn from.

"Defensively, we had a pretty good game. Jen is amazing, and before those last minutes, it was a only a three- to four-goal game," she said. "Offensively, we could have gotten more shots in, however, when we take shots on goal, we make them count. You live and you learn. It was a good experience, and that's what we take from it."