When athletes talk about playing in a “zone”, it’s a euphemism for having every bit of skill, talent and mental focus blend together into a high performance level rarely achieved.
To the Christian Brothers Academy girls lacrosse team, though, the zone was something literal – as in the defensive lifeline that helped them a third consecutive Section III Class A championship.
Without question, the defense was the difference in Tuesday’s sectional final against top seed West Genesee at SUNY-Cortland, with the Brothers shutting out the Wildcats in the first half and also stepping up late to preserve a 6-4 victory.
Ali Anderson, the senior leader of CBA’s back line, said the genesis of this effort came from her team’s 9-6 defeat to WG back on April 21 in Camillus. At the time, the Brothers employed a man-to-man look, but were constantly burned by WG’s deep group of forwards.
For the rest of the season, CBA’s coaches worked on switching to a zone, which ceded territory but closed up lanes to the net, an especially effective tactic against the Wildcats, who rely on cuts by attackers to the net and passers finding them in stride for point-blank shots and, more often than not, goals.
By the time the final arrived, the Brothers’ zone was well-established. So was a WG scoring drought where it had not found the net the entire second half of its narrow 6-5 semifinal win over Cicero-North Syracuse.
Sharp and focused from the outset, the Brothers tore to a 4-0 lead in the first 10 minutes as Grace Hulslander kept winning draws and netted one of those goals, with Olivia Penoyer scoring twice and eighth-grader Gracie Britton also converting.
Now the zone took over. Anderson, Paige Alletzhauser, Kathleen Harrigan and Avery Penoyer provided the anchors, and CBA’s deep group of midfielders helped out, frustrating WG’s forwards every time it had the ball.
The result was a clean sheet at halftime, with Claire Jeschke’s goal late in the half making it a 5-0 margin going into the break that seemed twice as big given how well the Brothers were playing.
At last, the Wildcats’ drought ended on Matisyn Schaut’s goal 90 seconds into the second half. Newly energized, WG picked up pressure on both ends, and back-to-back goals by Phoebe Nelson and Emily Stratton a minute apart cut CBA’s lead to 5-3 with more than 15 minutes left.
However, the Brother thwarted many different opportunities for the Wildcats to inch closer, and got an insurance goal from Britton with 10:28 to play. Not until Eliza MacCaull’s goal in the last minute did WG score again, and that proved too late.
Now with the sectional title in hand, CBA travelsto Corning High School for Saturday’s Class A regional final against Section IV champion Ithaca.
