Girls' LAX Team Posts Win Against UC For Best Season Ever

Closing out their best season ever, the Cranford girls' varsity lacrosse team cruised to victory over visiting Union Catholic 17-5 at Orange Avenue Field.

In its fifth year, the program reached the 10-win plateau for the first time under new head coach Lauren Leddy. It was just a week ago that the Lady Cougars participated in the state tournament, another first for the team.

"We moved the ball really well on attack," said Leddy. "We were ready to connect, ran some of our plays, we found the back of the cage pretty easily today and our 'D' played great too. Everytime they got the ball down on defense, we were able to come up with a good defensive play and get it down to our attacking end with no problem."

The victory over the Lady Vikings was highlighted by a seven-goal effort from Mai-Lin Choy-Shan, who was named last week's Cranford Patch Athlete of the Week. The talented senior now has 77 goals and 28 assists for her career.

"I just came into the game with my head held high, even though we had an awful loss on Saturday," said Choy-Shan. "I knew this was going to be a win and I wanted my team to be all excited. Being my senior year, it's just incredible. I'm just so happy. This team has grown so much, especially with our new coaches. It's been amazing."

"She had an awesome game today, she's had an awesome season," said Leddy. "Her speed definitely helps, she has a great stick, she's all over the place, she's down on defense, she's at midfield, and then she's down on attack,"

Leddy pointed out that Emily McHugh, Jacqueline Monteagudo, and Alexa Preucil have been outstanding as lower defenders during this history-making season.

"Anytime we play a solid team, I have those three picking up their leading scorers and they do  really good job of keeping an eye on them, making sure they don't touch the ball, and they just are great communicators down there too," Leddy said. "They see the field really well, they get back down there on the eight, and they tell our middies where to go and who to pick up. They're really solid back there for us."

"Today, we all put our heart into it and worked 100 percent," said Monteagudo. "Coming into it, the defenders said that we're not going to let any in, but we still did awesome, so we're happy."

Junior goalie Alanna Conte played a solid game once again by posting seven saves.

Junior Nicole Kleiman added five goals and two assists in the victory, while Morgan Mason and Kelly Miller contributed two goals apiece.

"In the first half, we were doing pretty well, but our passes were a little bit sloppy," said Miller. "But in the second half, we really picked it up and played our best."

For this team, getting 10 victories was an early-season goal.

"It was very important," said Monteagudo. "At the beginning of the season we had our team goals and we wanted to be over .500 because that would be a first ever, so now we're ecstatic that it's actually happened."

"I'm excited, everyone else is excited too," Miller said. "It's really awesome. Now we have a winning record. In the beginning of the season, we weren't quite sure what would happen, so we're happy."