On a sunny day from Ridgewood High School, both the Girls and Boys Lacrosse teams moved one step closer towards their goals of winning their state group titles.
Girls Lacrosse Wins 20-7
In a game that was 16-3 at the half, the Lady Maroons used a furious attack to score early and often in its North Group IV semi-final round victory over West Windsor South.
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Playing without seniors Sammy Giordano and Sally Jentis, junior Kelci Smesko led the way for Ridgewood with 5 goals and 2 assists on the day. Caitlin Concilio and Lindsay Weiner each had 3 apiece for the Lady Maroons as well.
Smesko has taken a larger role in the absence of some of the seniors, but she downplayed her role, giving all of the credit to the seniors. On a whole, the entire team has played well as new players have stepped it up with sudden voids to fill.
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"We have great seniors and great captains and even though their sick, whether they're on the field or not they're great leaders for us," said Smesko. "Everyone has done a great job stepping up and they've contributed to our success."
The team moves on to the North Group IV final at home on Thursday, where it will take on Hillsborough as they look to defend their title from last season.
Boys Lacrosse Wins 13-3
Though its offense struggled a bit in the second half, a tremendous effort defensively kept Monroe in check, en route to a win in the Round-of-16 in the Group III State Tournament.
Ridgewood got out to a quick 3-0 lead and stretched it to 6-1 heading into halftime.
In the third quarter Monroe added two goals to cut the lead to then 7-3, but at that point Ridgewood refocused and executed its offense to net five fourth quarter goals, including three in a row from Max Luing.
"We didn't come out as strong as we possibly could so we had to just fight through that and figure it out and we figured it out in the second half and ended up playing strong," said Senior Andrew Toner, who knows that as a senior, every game in the single elimination tournament could be his last.
"It drives us a lot, we saw how [Monroe] felt to lose and we don't want to have that feeling so we're just going to play as hard as we can and try not to lose."
The team moves on to face 8th-seeded Jackson at home on Thursday.
