Sports
Girls' Lacrosse: Rams fall a half short

May 2, 2008

Plenty of things went right for the New Canaan Rams during the second half of their girls’ lacrosse game against Greenwich on Tuesday.

New Canaan was aggressive and focused, won the majority of the draw controls and ground ball battles, and outscored the Cardinals by six goals. Now, if only the Rams could have called a mulligan after the first half.

Greenwich scored nine consecutive goals to close out the first half and built a 10-1 lead that was just too big for the Rams to climb out of, despite a valiant effort in the second half.

The end result of the wild momentum shifts was a 16-13 Greenwich victory and a lot of things New Canaan could build upon this season.

“Whether you play well or you play poorly, you’re always going to learn something from it,” Head Coach Kristin Wood said. “It’s important to take what happened with you and move on.”

The loss was the third in the last four games for New Canaan, which is now 7-3 overall and 4-3 in the FCIAC heading into yet another big game at Wilton Friday at 4 p.m. Greenwich climbed to 8-3 overall and 8-1 in the FCIAC.

The two halves were like night and day for the Rams, who looked flat in the first 25 minutes and dynamic after halftime.

“They didn’t show up the first half — we knew it and they knew it,” Wood said. “They weren’t going hard. They were expecting things to just happen for them and you can never do that. You go out there and do it.”

While the Rams struggled with just one goal — scored by Alexandra Crerend 1:01 into the game — the Cardinals were firing on all cylinders and scored 10, including twice in the final 33 seconds.
New Canaan had some near misses, with a couple even hitting the post, but it was definitely a bad half for the home team.

“The first half we came out a flat which put us down in the very beginning and we couldn’t turn it around,” senior co-captain Kaitlin Purdy said. “The defense played well, but we were on defense so much that it was hard to stop them.

“We created a snowball effect in a negative way where if they hustled for a ground ball, we didn’t hustle to get the ball back. We weren’t down on each other but we were down on ourselves personally and that’s when we needed to really build it up and we didn’t do that.”

In the second half, however, “they woke up,” according to Wood.

Jenny Simpson snapped a 24-minute scoring drought when she picked up a ground ball and scored on a putback just 18 seconds into the second half. She scored again 1:21 later, and when Purdy scored on a free position at 2:10, New Canaan had a mini-run going.

Erin Fessler than whipped one high into the net from the right side to make it 10-5, and Kacey Pippitt rolled around the back of the net and scored from the left to get the Rams within four at 10-6 with 19:43 remaining.

Greenwich snapped the slide a minute later and went on a 4-0 run to make it a 14-6 game and after the teams exchanged goals, Fessler and Meg Boland scored on free positions to make the score 15-9 with 8:25 to play.

Emma Kramer scored her third goal for Greenwich for a 16-9 lead with 7:00 left, but the Rams had one last push left, as they scored four straight during a span of 2:27. Veronica Lizzio scored two of those, with Anjalie Christie and Pippitt netting the others.

New Canaan trailed 16-13 at that point, but Greenwich won the ensuing draw and possessed the ball for the final 2:35 to secure the win.

Simpson finished with a hat trick for the Rams, while Lizzio, Fessler and Pippitt added two each. Crerend, Purdy, Boland and Christie had single tallies, and Maddie Mauk and Charlotte Spitzfaden shared time in the net with each making two saves.

For Greenwich, Taylor Stafford scored four times, Hannah Bowers and Kramer had hat tricks, Kim O’Neil scored twice and Anne Buonanno, Steph Nielsen and Lara Bennett each scored once.

Purdy said the Rams’ performance in the second half had everything to do with pride.

“In the second half, we knew there was no way we were going to go down 10-1 as a team and we started playing for respect.”  Purdy said. “We came out on fire and got back in the game. 16-13 is a great loss considering where we were in the first half.”

The loss came on the heels of a dramatic overtime win over Glastonbury Saturday at Dunning Field, as the Rams outscored the Tomahawks 3-2 in overtime to win 16-15.

Boland had a hat trick and scored two of New Canaan’s three goals in OT. Pippitt scored the other overtime goal and also had a hat trick.

Simpson and Christie scored three each during regulation, Fessler and Pippitt each had two and Sydney Hare and Lizzio had a goal apiece. Mauk (5 saves) and Spitzfaden (2 saves) again shared the goaltending duties.

Sarah Allen and Sarah LaRose each scored five goals for Glastonbury, which trailed 7-5 at halftime before tying it at 13-13 to force overtime.

“Glastonbury was a great game,” Wood said. “Everybody was going hard the entire time, the focus was there, the intensity was there, things were clicking and there were no let-ups. It was a great game to watch and the girls were so excited at the end.”

© Copyright 2008 by Hersam Acorn Newspapers