STAB’s girls lacrosse squad was up by six goals early in the second half and appeared in complete control when suddenly their opponent Sacred Heart, a high-scoring squad out of Kentucky, popped in two straight goals to pull within four.
That didn’t matter. STAB just hit the gas again and pulled away to a 24-11 victory.
“I think that’s the sign of a good team, if you can respond after someone throws a couple of goals in,” said STAB coach Mary Blake. “And we turned around and responded.”
Despite a couple of near-misses at the cage, STAB’s midfield managed to largely keep Sacred Heart from moving the ball out of the zone after turnovers. That helped spur a 17-minute scoreless stretch by Sacred Heart. The visitors scored with 20:49 left to play but didn’t manage another goal until there was just 3:55 left to play. That strong defense coincided with a 7-0 run by STAB.
“The difference was what we did in midfield,” Blake said. “The midfield coming up with ground balls, coming up with draws—that’s the key that kept putting us back on attack. When they get it we pressure enough to come back up with the ball.”
STAB junior Julia Haney bounced back from a rare performance without a goal in the Saints’ Saturday win against Oakton—the Princeton commit faced intense defensive pressure throughout — by ripping off an eight-goal, one assist outing. But she was far from the only Saints player getting the job done on offense. Caroline DiGiacomo had a breakout four goal, four assist performance for the Saints and Annie Cory poured in four goals and an assist on the afternoon.
Virginia Speidel also got in on the act with a hat trick and Audrey Schreck scored twice while ringing up a trio of assists.
“Now we’ve got Audrey in the mix as a defender and she’s coming down and putting them in the cage,” Blake said. “It’s going to be hard to stop all of the weapons we have on the offensive end.”
Alex Tennery and Sadie Bryant rounded out the scoring with two goals and a goal respectively.
