Girls LAX Edges New Providence in County Tourney 12-11

It may have been a chilly, windy spring evening at Memorial Field, but the Cranford girls' lacrosse team didn't let the unseasonable temperatures bother them.

The night couldn't have gone much better. There was a big crowd, the seniors were honored, and a lot of money was raised to help fight ovarian cancer.

To top it all off, the Lady Cougars defeated New Providence 12-11 in the opening round of the Union County Tournament, holding on in the final moments to nail down their most exciting victory of the year.

"I did fundraising for ovarian cancer, so it wasn't only our senior night," said Shannon Slattery. "We raised a lot of money, so it meant a lot to win. Being that it's my last game under the lights, I really wanted to win it, and we came out really strong in the beginning. We let up a little bit, but we fought it out until the end."

"This is the most fans we've had at any of our games," said first-year head coach Lauren Leddy. "So I think our girls put everything they had into it, lots of emotions. I just think they played their hearts out,"

For senior Mai-Lin Choy-Shan, playing on the big stage in front of a cheering home crowd will be a moment she'll always remember.

"It means the absolute world to me," said Choy-Shan. "Over these four years, I've been looking for a victory like this. You can't even imagine the feeling that I'm having right now. It's absolutely incredible. I'll be talking about this for years."

"There were a lot of emotions going through a lot of people's minds," said goalie Alanna Conte. "Personally, I was kind of overwhelmed. I was really excited, for the game. We'd been preparing all week for it. I think we were ready for it, though."

As has often been the case for this young team, they didn't make it easy on themselves. The Cougars held a 9-3 lead at the half, but even Coach Leddy knew the game was long from over.

"I said to the girls, six goals is not a big enough lead for me right now, I need more from you, let's put some more in the back of the cage," Leddy said. "Then all of a sudden, they started coming up with goals on their fast break. I think what really was killing us was our draw control. That's been an issue in many of our games. It sets the pace for the game. But every time we got it down in the attacking end, we were able to pretty much score every time. So I wasn't worried about scoring, so much as they were pretty much scoring as well. They started to come back. It was a little scary. They almost gave me a heart attack, but they pulled it off in the end."

"We were up by six goals and we should have kept that, but in the end, I knew we were going to come through and win it," said Choy-Shan.

"We just have to hold it together throughout the whole game," Slattery said. "We let down and we have to learn to fight through the whole fifty minutes."

Conte was outstanding in defending the cage, especially late in the game, when she made a pair of key point-blank stops to preserve the win. As an underclassman, she for one, wanted to win one for the seniors.

"This game was huge to make it a little further in the county competition," Conte said. "It meant a lot to win on senior night. I know a lot of girls really wanted to win. It was really meaningful for us. We really wanted to win just so the other girls had that night to remember."

The final six minutes will be remembered as nervewracking with so much on the line.

"I was really nervous," said Conte. "I had a lot going through my mind, but my main focus was to stop the ball and do my job the best that I could."

For Slattery, the win was memorable, but so was the fundraising effort, which really hit home. Her mom has been fighting ovarian cancer for the past five years.

"I took this as a great opportunity to raise a lot of money and get awareness out to the town and everyone else," Slattery said. "I have to thank everyone in the whole school, because I couldn't have done it without them."

And while the fundraiser earned several thousand dollars for the Kaleidoscope of Hope program, the Lady Cougars earned a chance to move on to the second round in the county tournament. They will face one of the tournament favorites tonight when they travel to Summit for a 6:30 p.m. start. The Hilltoppers are ranked No. 12 in the state rankings.

For one night, at least, everything fell into place. You could even say it was a dream come true.

"It was exactly as I imagined it," Conte said. "Last night, I texted Mai-Lin before the game and I told her, the only thing going through my mind right now is the final buzzer, and you and I jumping on top of each other, and a pile in the middle of the field. And that's exactly the way it happened."