Here, for the Jamesville-DeWitt girls lacrosse team, was a new and exciting experience, the program’s first-ever trip to the state final four, which already made the 2018 season.
But the Red Rams wanted more, and went after it Friday morning in the state Class C semifinal at SUNY-Cortland against Cold Spring Harbor, only to get overwhelmed by a ferocious Seahawks attack that took over late in the first half and prevailed 16-8.
Eight consecutive goals by CSH erased an early J-D advantage, and the Rams were unable to recover.
“We weren’t winning the draw controls, and we needed to possess the ball longer,” said J-D head coach Stephanie Rice.
Much as the Rams accomplished, CSH had done a lot to get here, too, knocking off reigning three-time state champion Mount Sinai in the Long Island championship.
At first, J-D wasn’t phased by this, with Ana Dieroff twice answering Seahawks goals and then Katie Lutz hitting on back-to-back goals to push J-D in front. 4-2 before the game was six minutes old.
Then the defense tried to take over. A string of long CSH possessions made Payton Riley, Ali Durkin, Arysa Lux, Sydney Baum and other back-line players chase the Seahawks’ attackers, and goalie Skyler Constantino did make a couple of point-blank stops.
Ultimately, though, all that possession time turned into production. Four goals in 71 seconds, two of them by Nicole Mormile, put CSH in front for good and were part of an 8-0 run with seven different players netting those goals.
Only Lutz’s goal with 2:22 left in the half halted the run, but the Rams still trailed 10-5 at the break and would need a surge of its own to catch up. Instead, CSH extended its margin to 13-5 before Lindsay MacLachlan and Kailey McKenna scored in 24-second span midway through the second half.
Yet that brief spurt was quickly doused by goals from Mormile and Grace Tauckas, and though Chloe Loewenguth scored in the waning minutes, CSH advanced to face Honeoye Falls-Lima in the state title game, where the Seahawks easily prevailed 18-3.
J-D finished its season with 18 wins and just three defeats, and will see seven seniors graduate, including Lutz, Riley, Durkin and Riley Burns. Together, they helped J-D break a long title drought with back-to-back sectional championships and this state final four trip.
“These seniors leave a great legacy,” said Rice, who added that getting this far changes the program’s trajectory and its expectations for 2019 and beyond,.
