More than two decades removed from its last Section III championship, the Jamesville-DeWitt girls lacrosse team tried to climb back to the top, but fell one step short.
Top seed Watertown proved too much for the no. 3 seed Red Rams, prevailing 13-7 in Tuesday night’s sectional final at the Carrier Dome by building an 11-goal lead and withstanding J-D’s attempt at an historic late comeback.
Red Rams head coach Dennis Kennedy said his team was nervous at the start, and Watertown, who had lost each of the previous two sectional finals, used that experience to its advantage.
J-D was trying for a Frontier League sweep, having knocked off no. 2 seed Carthage 9-7 in the May 21 semifinal. But the Comets didn’t possess the same kind of firepower that Watertown, 15-2 and no. 7 in the state Class B rankings, would throw at them.
The opening stretch proved decisive. For more than six minutes, J-D kept the Cyclones scoreless, yet could not take advantage of it by getting on the board, turning the ball over whenever it had chances to attack.
So when Emma Nevers found the net at the 6:47 mark, two more goals, by Morgan Girardi and Olivia Miles, followed within a 63-second span, putting Watertown up 3-0.
Much more was to follow, the Rams’ deficit doubling to 6-0 before Caroline Kopp broke her team’s drought at the 13:38 mark off a feed from Jessica Wipper.
Instead of getting closer, though, J-D was stymied on several scoring opportunities thanks to saves from Watertown goalie Lauren Girardi. All told, the Rams took 26 shots to the Cyclones’ 19, but Girardi’s 13 saves, most of them in the first half, made a difference.
As if that wasn’t enough trouble, another Girardi sister, Jillian, offered the finishing touches to Watertown’s first half with three straight goals, two of them in the last minute of the half, to stretch the margin to 9-1 going into intermission.
The second half brought more damage from the Girardis, Morgan hitting on back-to-back goals that made it 11-1 and established a running clock.
J-D’s deficit grew to 12-1 before Ali Durkin, Julia Kelner and Meg Hair got consecutive goals to ignite a 6-0 run. Carly Stone followed with back-to-back goals that cut the deficit to 12-6, and when Hair hit on a second goal with 6:27 left, the margin was down to five.
“I never count my players out,” said Kennedy.
Before the Rams could finish its miraculous comeback, though, Watertown gained the next draw and burned off some time before Miles scored with 2:38 left, icing the Cyclones’ first sectional championship since 2010. Miles finished with three goals and four assists as Morgan and Lauren Girardi each scored four times.
Eight seniors graduate from J-D’s squad, which finished at 11-7, including Kopp, Stone, Wipper, Meghan Byrnes, Riley Foti and Kallen Prosak. But a strong cast, led by Hair, Durkin, Kelner, Lizzie O’Brien and Carolyn Kolceski, returns in 2016 to try again and get that first sectional title since 1993
