It took less than a week of game action for the Liverpool girls lacrosse team to deal with its first serious challenges of the spring.
But it started easily enough against Whitesboro last Tuesday night at LHS Stadium, Liverpool having little trouble claiming this clash of Warriors sides as it pulled away late for an 18-7 victory.
The most impressive part of this game was that Liverpool wasn’t content holding a 9-4 halftime lead. Instead, it remained steady on defense and consistent on the other end, expanding the margin to double digits.
Maia Henry, with four goals and three assists, paced the attack as Veronica Brancato scored three times. Brittany Halpin augmented her pair of goals with three assists as Abby Hope and Kate Salanger each got two goals and one assist.
Krystyna Sterio also scored twice, with Megan Fitzpatrick notching a goal and two assists. Emily Salanger had one goal and one assist as Zoe Morgenroth earned the other goal. Lexi Scaccia accounted for four of Whitesboro’s seven goals.
Two nights later, Liverpool was hosting Cazenovia, who had dropped its opener 16-12 to Fulton. Amid wet, windy conditions, the Warriors struggled in the game’s middle stages and made a frantic late comeback, only to see it come up just short in an 11-10 defeat to the Lakers.
Liverpool got the start it wanted as Sterio scored at the 3:09 mark and, after Cazenovia seized a brief lead, answered with three straight goals. But the Lakers would keep the Warriors off the board for the rest of the half as Lucy Connor’s pair of goals sparked a 4-0 run that put the visitors in front 6-4 at the break.
Cazenovia’s Chloe Willard took over early in the second half, netting four of her game-high five goals in a span of less than 10 minutes, which helped the Lakers stretch out its lead to 11-7 – but it wasn’t over.
Right after Willard found the net, Halpin did so with 12:20 left. Two minutes later, Brancato scored to cut the deficit to 11-9, and then the defenses settled in, especially that of the Warriors, who would blank the Lakers the rest of the way as goalie Marissa Madonna finished with 12 saves.
When Henry put one past Cazenovia netmidner Laura Lorraine with 1:39 to play, Liverpool was within one, and would get chances in the last minute to tie it and force overtime, only to see a shot fly wide as the clock ran out.
That late goal was Henry’s lone tally of the night as Halpin led a balanced attack with two goals and three assists. Sterio and Brancato also scored twice, with Salanger and Colleen Tifft joining Henry in the one-goal column. Abby Hope added an assist.
