SCH lacrosse led late against Irish

Posted 5/22/17

In her final home field appearance, SCH senior Taylor Ferry (left) launches a shot against Notre Dame. (Photo by Tom Utescher) by Tom Utescher With 10 minutes to go in last Wednesday's Inter-Ac …

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SCH lacrosse led late against Irish

Posted

In her final home field appearance, SCH senior Taylor Ferry (left) launches a shot against Notre Dame. (Photo by Tom Utescher)

by Tom Utescher

With 10 minutes to go in last Wednesday's Inter-Ac League lacrosse game, there was the possibility that the girls of host Springside Chestnut Hill Academy would pull off an upset.

At that stage, the Blue Devils were leading visiting Academy of Notre Dame, 8-7, but starting with the clock showing nine minutes and 50 seconds remaining, the Irish scored four goals in four minutes and went on to win, 16-10.

"We had opportunities," noted first-year SCH head coach Kasey Mock. "It wasn't a skill mismatch by any means, but there's a big mental piece to lacrosse and I think we need to sharpen our mental muscles."

Episcopal Academy (the 2017 champion) and Agnes Irwin were clearly the best lacrosse teams in the league this spring, and Notre Dame sort of occupied its own space in the third spot, comfortably ahead of SCH, Germantown Academy, Penn Charter, and Baldwin School. The late surge by the Irish last Wednesday at Springside Chestnut Hill gave them a final league record of 8-4, with all of their losses coming against Episcopal and Irwin.

SCH, which lost to Baldwin by a single goal the first time out and then beat the Bears 15-8 in the rematch, had a number of close league games but ended up 1-11 in league play.

Before Wednesday's final home game for the Blue Devils, they honored their five seniors, most of whom will definitely be playing lacrosse in college. Mason Rode signed on with Bucknell University some time ago, and Morgan Fitton-Zellers will join the team at Franklin & Marshall. Gabby Dunning, who unfortunately was sidelined by injury this spring, will wield her stick once more at Gettysburg College, and Taylor Ferry is headed to Texas and Southern Methodist University, where she will check out the club lacrosse program.

The fifth senior, Destini Curry, hadn't played lacrosse before this year, but she stepped up for her school this season after the Blue Devils graduated both of their goaltenders from the 2016 squad. A converted soccer keeper, Curry has done well enough to merit a scholarship from Bloomsburg University.

SCH mentor Mock remarked, "As a coach, when someone new joins your team and they discover that it's their passion, there's really nothing much cooler than that. Without Destini and Kylie Quinn [a sophomore who was also a novice goalie], we would have given up so many more goals this season."

Of the senior class as a whole, the coach commented, "They had different roles, and they had a difficult job. They had to help lead a lot of younger players while still trying to perfect their own game. We had three seniors out on the field and one in the cage, and Gabby Dunning has just been so positive and uplifting on the sidelines."

In Wednesday's Inter-Ac finale, both teams had chances early, but the score remained 0-0 until five minutes in, when Notre Dame's Hannah Gillespie got the visitors on the board off a free position. Three minutes later, Ferry tied it for SCH from a few feet outside the left post after receiving a feed from Rode. The scoreboard would seesaw through much of the remainder of the game.

A strike by AND's Makenzie Irvine was answered by SCH's Savannah Sweitzer, who found the upper left corner following an assist from behind the cage from her classmate, Riley Redpath.

In the middle of the period, the Blue Devils were hampered by a pair of penalties. They survived the first shorthanded stretch as a shot by Notre Dame senior Claire Nappi struck a post, but during the second penalty Notre Dame went up 3-2 on Nappi's goal with 7:15 remaining in the first half. Just under a minute later, Sweitzer moved laterally through the arc and fired a tying goal for the home team.

It looked as though the Irish would enjoy a slim lead at the break when Irvine found the net with 57 seconds left, but Springside Chestnut Hill evened it up right at the end. Redpath sent a long pass straight up the middle to find Ferry in front of the goal, and she scored with eight seconds remaining to make it 4-4 at the half.

From a free position, SCH freshman Dakota Carter gave the hosts their first lead of the day as she converted less than two minutes into the second period. Nappi, a North Carolina recruit, answered for Notre Dame with six minutes elapsed for a 5-5 tie.

Notre Dame had a number of chances early in the second half, but Curry came up with three of her eight total saves to keep the Blue Devils right in it.

The scoreboard had bumped up to 7-7 by the middle of the period. The Irish saw Claire Gola assist on a marker by Kelly Coyle and then deposit a goal of her own. For the Blue Devils, Ferry scored after scooping up a loose ball near the Notre Dame crease, and Rode drove straight through the middle to launch a successful shot.

With 10:57 remaining in the game, Ferry came from behind the cage on the left, clearing the post and then dumping the ball in over AND keeper Jackie Lanzalotto (three saves). The Blue Devils were ahead again, 8-7, but the Irish were about to put together a pivotal offensive run.

As the clock dropped from 9:50 to 5:52 left to play, crisp passing around the goal led to markers by Nappi, Gola, Maggie O'Brien, and Gillespie that afforded the visitors an 11-8 advantage.

With an assist from junior Grace Rorke, Redpath broke the Notre Dame streak to score for SCH with 5:33 remaining, but then Notre Dame funneled in its last five points all in a row. Coyle scored three times here to emerge with her game-high four goals, and single strikes came from Irvine and Gillespie.

"Lacrosse is a game of runs," the Devils' Mock pointed out, "and we need to score more than one goal at a time, while also limiting their goals."

The final point for the visitors went up on the board with 43 seconds to go, and with 14 seconds left the last goal of the afternoon was scored by SCH's Redpath off of a free position with 14 ticks on the clock.

The Blue Devils won the subsequent draw, then turned the ball over on an errant pass.

In the final stage of the season, Mock related, "We've been trying to focus on team defense, getting our slides down and not having players become isolated. We've also been working on handling pressure in different situations on attack."

As the Inter-Ac season ended, SCH would move on into the Pennsylvania Independent Schools tournament as the ninth seed.

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