Girls’ lacrosse: Conestoga tops Great Valley to remain unbeaten

BERWYN >> Spotting a team like Conestoga four goals to start the game usually doesn’t bode well for the win column. That theory proved itself out Saturday morning as Conestoga jumped out to a quick lead, held off a Great Valley rally and went on to post a 12-8 nonleague girls lacrosse victory at Teamer Field to remain unbeaten at 6-0.
The Pioneers jumped out to a quick advatange almost immediately. Kate Galica won the opening draw, picked up a ground ball, then steamed in on goal to beat goalie Sydney Manning for a 1-0 lead just nine seconds into the contest.
In quick succession, Kiki Liebezeit, Chloe Brown and Melissa Hewitt also dented the net and the Pioneers were up 4-0 a little under five minutes into the game.
“Amy’s (coach Orcutt) big mentality is like, first draw, first ground ball, first goal,” said Galica. “If you get scored on in the first few minutes it’s kind of defeating, so you really want to come out strong and hard and show them that you have to play hard to beat us.”
It was 5-0 before the Patriots broke through, thanks to Kaitlin Giandonato’s goal with 18:25 left.
Great Valley tried to claw back in it, but trailed, 8-4, at halftime.
“Definitely, it was a slow start that buried us,” said Great Valley coach Kim Wenger,
The Patriots tried to get back in it in the second half. Goals from Sydney Lavin and Giandonato cut the deficit to 8-6.
“It was doing the little things,” said Wenger on what got them back into the game. “Banding together and come up with some draw controls and some ground balls that we didn’t come up with in the first half.”
Conestoga scored four straight to build a comfortable margin again at 11-6. They went on to see the game out and remain undefeated. The Pioneers will test their unblemished record when they face Archbishop Carroll, one of the top teams in the area, on Monday.
Great Valley gets back to Ches-Mont League American Division play by visiting Sun Valley on Monday.
“I think we did a lot of good.” said Wenger. “The first thing I said to them was you can’t go down 0-4 to Conestoga. We did a lot of good, but still have a lot to grow from. We’ll have plenty of takeaways that hopefully, can translate into other games for us.”
For Conestoga, Galica had four goals, four draw controls — that were especially key early — and two ground balls. Piper Kienzle and Ellie Wisch added two goals each and Alana Lepore added five saves.
Giandonato paced the Patriots with four goals and Lavin collected three. Manning made eight saves.

Conestoga 12, Great Valley 8
Great Valley 4 4 – 8
Conestoga 8 4 – 12
Great Valley goals: Lavin 4, Giandonato 3, Albanese.
Conestoga goals: Galica 4, Kienzle 2, Wisch 2, Hewitt 2, Brown, Liebezeit,
Goalie saves: Manning (GV) 8; Lepore (C) 5.