As she corralled the injection pass, Elise Van Arsdale heard Sarah Fracasso-Francis, who let her know where Covenant’s defense was headed — right for her.
“As it was coming to me, she let me know that the fly was coming at me and not at anyone else,” Van Arsdale said. “That let me get the pass off safely.”
The St. Anne’s-Belfield senior calmly flicked the ball to her left and right onto the waiting stick of Lauren Gampper. With the game mired in overtime and with just three Covenant players allowed on the short corner to defend seven Saints, Gampper was wide open. She buried the shot and STAB celebrated its first win over Covenant in awhile, a 2-1 victory that tied the two schools at the top of the League of Independent Schools standings.
STAB sits at 8-4 and has taken a major leap forward after several frustrating seasons. The victory over the Eagles was a critical step to continue that improvement as Covenant has finished as the state runnerup the past two seasons. For a while though, it appeared STAB was going to end up on the short end of the stick again.
Despite the Saints largely controlling possession in latter part of the first half, Covenant’s Taylor Brown broke through first. Brown, who played through some significant back pain that even kept her out of the lineup for the first few minutes of overtime, unleashed the first goal in the closing minutes of the first half.
“We’ve got a couple of girls who are in a similar boat who are playing through some pretty big injuries,” said Covenant coach Katie Lavie. “It’s huge that they step up when they do. But it is tough momentum-wise having different starters going off the field for a variety of reasons.”
Brown has recently shifted up into the midfield after starting the season along the backline. The UVa commitment’s goal gave Covenant a halftime lead but the Saints wasted little time finding the equalizer with Fracasso-Francis scoring after some deft STAB passing less than two minutes into the second half. Maddie Brayman registered the assist.
St. Anne’s had four chances shortly thereafter on a series of back-to-back-to-back-to-back short corners, but couldn’t convert. Neither team could though during the final 28 minutes of the half, which sent the proceedings to overtime.
That’s when Gampper finished it off.
“Lauren is a great athlete and she hits that ball sweetly,” said STAB coach Brian Bartholomew. “We’d tried many options so we knew that the first line of defense wouldn’t necessarily go for her and she got off a sweet shot. That extra space (in the 7v7 overtime) helped us.”
