Relying on stick skills and communication, the South County Stallions girls lacrosse team got back to basics on Thursday night in its 18-8 win over Mount Vernon.
South County midfielder Lindsay Lawrence played nearly flawless and was key in controlling the game for the Stallions right from the start. She won 70 percent of the game's faceoffs and acted as field general throughout.
"Lindsay is a sophomore, so to see her grow into this position has been pretty awesome," said South County Coach Sarah King.
South County played a solid man-to-man defense, something that King doesn't like to switch up at all, and the Stallions were able to keep Mount Vernon from making clean passes in the middle of the field.
"We tried a zone in the past," King added. "But our girls are just so used to playing man defense, it's really hard to teach them something else."
In the first half, Mount Vernon only took eight shots on goal and went into halftime down 10-3.
Mount Vernon was more aggressive in the second half, and the Majors were able to to match the Stallions goal-for-goal over the first 12 minutes. Midfielder Gabrielle Ocker turned up the tempo and took control by running the length of the field on multiple occasions. She scored four of her seven goals in the second half.
Mount Vernon Coach Caroline Pickell commented that she wished the tempo of the game had been a bit faster, something that her team will work on in practice.
The Majors switched from zone to man-to-man defense in the second half in order to be more aggressive, but the stellar transition play of the Stallions got the best of them.
"They had plays, knew where the picks were going, and they knew how to talk to each other," said Ocker. "They [also] didn't drop the ball. They played like they had done it a 100 times and that made the difference."
Molly Berberian led the Stallions in scoring with five goals. Patty Rafferty and Tara O'Connor each had three. Katie Fuchs had two goals and three assists.
