Penncrest Girls Lacrosse: A Tale of Two Halves

girls lacrosse team has shown that they can put together as strong a half of a lacrosse game as anyone. The problem: they need to find a way to do it in both halves of the same game.

The 1-6 Lions hosted a strong 4-1 Springfield team on a soggy field on Thursday afternoon, and found themselves playing catch-up almost from the opening draw. Springfield came out fast and strong, and it took them 1:16 to score their first goal. Before five minutes had elapsed in the first half, Penncrest found themselves down 4-0. Springfield just seemed to be moving faster, making tight passes, finding the open attacker, and just outhustling the Lions, who seemed content to sit back in a passive defensive stance and allow Springfield to settle into a rhythm, giving them ample time to find open scoring lanes.

At 14:23 of the first half, after having served a three-minute penalty for an illegal shot to an opponent's head, Penncrest's Christy Bond came streaking off the sidelines with a vengeance, outmuscled four Springfield players for the ball and got the Lions on the board, making it 6-1. Caroline Nichols made it 6-2 by cashing in on a penalty shot less than two minutes later.

On the ensuing draw, Springfield's Courtney Kennedy, who was tough for Penncrest to contain all day, took the ball down Penncrest's half of the field and buried a low shot for a 7-2 lead. It was the first of a torrent of six unanswered Springfield goals in the remainder of the half, and the dejected Lions went into a sideline huddle during halftime looking at a 12-2 deficit. Aside from Kennedy, Springfield's Maddie Lynch proved to be an offensive nightmare, netting five goals in the first half alone.

Penncrest head coach Megan Magee laid into her troops, trying to correct the passive defensive posture, the lack of offensive support, the miscommunications and the inaccurate passing. "From this point on," Magee said loud enough for all to hear, "if you're watching the ball go by you, then you're going to watch it from the bench. Let me know right now if you don't want the ball."

Magee had more to say to her players, and when Penncrest took the field in the second half, they played with more fire, more communication and more careful passing. Still, Springfield managed to score the next three goals—although they had to work harder for it than they had in the first half.

At that point, something snapped for the Lions.

At 8:54, Christy Bond drifted around the periphery of the 8-yard circle looking for an open teammate, then decided to streak in on goal herself and put the ball past the Springfield goaltender for her second goal of the game. At 6:27, the Lions' lone senior, midfielder Patrice Coleman, bull-rushed through several defenders and made it 15-4. Less than a minute later, Bond completed her hat trick. About 90 seconds after that, Coleman scored her second goal of the game, this time on a penalty shot. With 2:00 remaining, Springfield broke Penncrest's sudden scoring streak, which was answered 24 seconds later by Coleman's hat trick goal.

The final score was 16-7.

"We always play one half," said coach Magee after the game. "We have to put a whole game together. Communication and intensity is what we focused on at halftime. We have a young team, a lot of girls who haven't played together before. We need the upperclassmen to step up and someone needs to take a leadership role."

It's true that the Lions have only one senior on the roster, which certainly hurts them in the experience department. This includes the loss of senior midfielder Charlotte Beebe for the entire season due to a knee injury. With a team so young, not used to each other, it's natural to go through a painful learning curve at the start of the season, but the last 10 minutes of the game showed that these Lions do have teeth, and they can compete with a team as strong as Springfield's impressive squad if properly motivated. The trick now is getting them to put that kind of game together for the full 48 minutes.

As the season goes on, look for this team to come together and develop some strong chemistry behind big guns like Bond and Coleman. These two were the core of the offense on Thursday and showed some fearsome tenacity in charging the net, hungry for goals.

Sophomore goaltender Rachel Campbell made some great stops from in close, but there's only so much a goalie can do when bombarded with as many shots as she was on Thursday. She showed she has the reflexes and composure to stone the opposition's best shooters when given a fair chance.

Another sophomore, midfielder Kelsey Blackburn, also deserves honorable mention for her hustle at both ends of the field. For the entire game, it seemed like she was involved in the play, getting her stick in the opponents' faces, scooping up loose balls, making passes and keeping up with the changing tides of the game. She may be the breakout underclassman of the team, and sets a great example of the kind of fire the Lions need to win games.