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Just over 8 minutes into Tuesday night’s girls lacrosse game at Lake Catholic, visiting Wooster jumped to a 5-1 lead and appeared poised to break things wide open.
But then the striped shirts got in the way.
The host Cougars twice battled back to within one goal, but eventually the Generals pulled away to a 14-10 victory, ending Lake Catholic’s three-game winning streak. The Generals are now 5-1, while the hosts fell to 3-4.
“I think the officiating was a big contributing factor,” said Wooster coach Holly Pope. “I think they were fouling us a ton and we were getting frustrated, and then we were fouling back. Then the calls started going not in our favor, and I think that contributed to that slump that kind of happened there for a while. I feel like my kids are well coached and they know right from wrong, so when those things are happening it’s hard for them to rise above and play their game. That was a huge part of the middle chunk of that game.”
In girls lacrosse, when a player receives a yellow card for a major penalty, she is forced to sit out for two minutes. Two of Lake Catholic’s goals were scored when the Cougars had the advantage, and one of them came with two Wooster players sitting out. In all, the Generals received four yellow cards, and after the fourth, by rule they had to play the rest of the game one player down, a stretch that covered most of the game’s final five minutes.
“I don’t think in my 14 years of coaching I’ve ever had a team that had four cards and had to play a man down,” Pope said. “That was a first and it’s not something I’m proud of by any stretch. I don’t necessarily agree with the cards that happened, but they happened and we had to adjust to it.”
After jumping to the 5-1 lead with four different players scoring, Wooster saw Lake Catholic score late in the first quarter to cut the deficit to 5-2, and then score the first two goals of the second period, making it 5-4. A few minutes later the Cougars were within one goal once again, this time at 6-5. The half ended with the Generals sitting on an 8-6 lead.
Wooster got the separation it needed in the third quarter, outscoring the hosts, 3-0, to take an 11-6 lead entering the final period.
“At halftime the talk was, ‘We can’t control the officiating, but we can control what we’re doing,’” Pope said. “We needed to reign in our intensity a little bit and try to stay hyped but without being really aggressive. With teenagers in the middle of a game that’s hard to do, but I think we were able to make the adjustments to what they were calling and what the other team was doing.”
After Wooster opened the fourth quarter on a goal by Amelia Correll to make it 12-6, the final score was the smallest the margin got, as the Cougars scored three of the game’s final four goals. Forced to play a man down because of the four cards, the Generals did an excellent job of maintaining possession of the ball, running out the clock in the game’s final 3 minutes without either team taking a shot.
Freshman Jay-Cee Hackett led Wooster with six goals. She was backed by Correll and Amber Street with three goals each, and Kylie Timko and Carolyn Greene each had a single tally.
“I have five players that are all right there in double digit scoring and depending on the game you just don’t know which one of them is going to step up,” Pope said. “You don’t know which one’s going to be the assister and which one’s going to be the scorer. We’re just a really well-balanced team.”
Lake Catholic was led by Lilly Doolan with six goals. Jules Conforte added three goals, and Megan Joy had one.
