Villa Maria edges Cougars to stay unbeaten
MALVERN >> With two teams combining for one loss in 26 games this season, you would figure that the girls lacrosse nonleague game between Downingtown East and Villa Maria would be a closely contested affair.
It did live up to billing as the Cougars erased a four-goal deficit, only to see the Hurricanes score three times late to come away with a 13-10 victory on a cool, breezy Tuesday afternoon.
Villa moved to 14-0 and remained one of three unbeaten teams in District 1. East has dropped two of its last three games to fall to 11-2-1. The game featured two of the top teams in the District 1 power rankings. East was ranked fourth in 3A coming into the game, while the Hurricanes were the top-ranked squad in 2A.
Villa Maria coach Teresa Giunta expected a difficult game with such a quality opponent, and she got it.
“Yes, absoultely,” she said. “Downingtown East is always a battle. They are a really good team, very well coached team. We just have to show up and be the quality team that we are and we finished the game.”
The Hurricanes held a tenuous 5-4 lead at the beginning of the second half, but they scored three straight to bump the lead up to 8-4.
Sophia Tray notched the first two goals and Kaleyn Wolfe added the third as she cut across the middle and fired a shot into the net.
The Cougars broke the run as Jayne Michaels tallied a pair to cut the Hurricanes’ lead to 8-6 with 17:37 left.
Maggie Traynor made it 9-6 after taking a feed from Alice Nash. Then, Nash got on the main side of the scoring ledger as her shot bounced in past East goalie Addy Mulhern.
“There was still a lot of time left,” said Nash. “We were never settled. We just had to keep pushing it, trying to score as much as we can and try to get as many stops as we could. They’re really good in transition, so we had to work on stopping them on that.”
The Cougars began their comeback as Riley Marks’ shot went in, inside the left post. Then, Ally Kennedy circled the net, came out the left side and scored to cut the deficit to 10-8.
Villa could have extended the advantage, but on two successive trips they hit a post and a crossbar.
East took advantage and climbed to within a goal on a tally from Sofia Fanelli. Lexie Conte then tied it up as she scored from in close to make it 10-10 with 5:40 to play.
But, that was the last time the Cougars scored. Villa regained the lead as Wolfe buried a feed from Nash for an 11-10 advantage.
Then, after East turned the ball over, Villa started to bleed the clock, and ran about a minute off, but Nash had other ideas — she came from the net, got a step on her defender, then turned and rocketed a shot into the net with 2:16 left for a little insurance.
“A lot of it was work from behind (the net) with my teammate, Maggie Traynor,” said Nash. “We work really well back there together. She was able to find me and I was able to find her.”
Traynor capped the scoring with a little over a minute left.
Both goalies, Mulhern and Quin Simmons for Villa, played well in the first half. They made three saves apiece in the first 10 minutes. Simmons ended up with making six saves in the half and eight for the game.
“Quinn played the whole game and made some really quality saves to keep the momemtum going in our favor and that’s what we relied on,” added Giunta.
Vila Maria 13, Downingtown East 10
Downingtown East 4 6 — 10
Villa Maria 5 8 — 13
Downingtown East goals: Conte 4, Yard, Michaels 2, Fanelli, Marks, Kennedy.
Villa Maria goals: Nash 4, Tray 2, M. Traynor 2, Wolfe 3, Meyer, L. Traynor.
Goalie saves: Mulhern (DE) 6; Simmons (VM) 8.
