Video: Tiverton Tigers Make It 10 Straight Wins In Girls' Lacrosse

One half for show, the second for dough.

The girls’ lacrosse team remained undefeated Monday night, overcoming a sloppy first-half defensive performance to shut down visiting Warwick Vets High School in the final period, and emerged with a 14-8 Division II-South victory under rainy and cold weather conditions.

Samantha Welchman scored four goals, Kara Lotz added three goals, and Megan Raposa, Maya Bergandy and Jackie Carmichael all finished with two goals as the Tigers erased an early two-goal disadvantage and held the Hurricanes scoreless for nearly 22 minutes of the second half to earn their tenth victory in as many starts this spring. Vets, which received a four-goal effort from Jessica McCaughey, dropped to 5-7.

Kate Karzenski also scored a goal for Tiverton and netminder Alex Azevedo turned aside 10 shots.

“We definitely had a slow start tonight because I think we were still feeling the effects of our very close win last Friday (6-5 against Westerly High),” said Tiverton Coach Emily DuBreuil. “Eventually, we started to pick things up in the second half.”

With a four-goal flurry in the closing 4:06 of the opening period, the Tigers had erased a 4-2 deficit to take an 8-6 edge at intermission. After McCaughey tallied a goal in the opening three minutes of the second half to narrow the gap to a single score, Tiverton clamped down defensively and unleashed its fast-striking attack to run off six unanswered goals in the ensuing 20 minutes, rendering moot McCaughey’s last tally with 36 ticks remaining.

“At halftime, we talked about what went on in the first half and needed to be in more control of the game and to mark up better defensively,” DuBreuil said. “I didn’t think our defense communicated well in the first half, but we did a better job in the second half.”

And how. The Tiger offense dominated the second half and even when the Hurricanes penetrated Tiverton’s defensive zone, stalwart defenders Katelyn Caraveo and Alex Corr were immense. Azevedo also made four key saves to keep the visitors off the board.

After McCaughey had reduced the Vets’ deficit to 8-7 early in the final chapter, the Tigers countered with goals by Karzenski (with 21:41 left to play), Lotz (at 21:19), two by Carmichael (at 14:49 and 8:53) and two by Welchman (at 7:47 and 2:33) to assume a commanding 14-7 lead.

The Hurricanes had few answers for Tiverton’s trademark fast-break offense, which featured the speedy Welchman and Raposa along with Lotz, Bergandy, Carmichael, Jackie Wilson and Olivia Bergandy. The Tigers relentlessly pressured Vets’ defensive zone and found a sufficient number of cracks in their opponents’ armor to create solid scoring opportunities.

Early goals by Lotz and Bergandy gave Tiverton a 2-1 edge in the first half before the Hurricanes ran off three straight tallies (two by Olga Antelo and one by McCaughey) to assume a 4-2 lead with 15:47 to play. The Tigers then ripped off five of the next six tallies in the ensuing 12 minutes of action and a score by Welchman with 32 seconds left gave them the 8-6 spread at halftime.

Tiverton returns to action today (Tuesday, May 17), at home against Chariho Regional High School at 4 p.m.

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