PIAA Class 2A Girls Lacrosse: Lainey Straub, Carroll avoid pushups, push into state final

WEST CHESTER — The first half Tuesday at West Chester Henderson wasn’t played the way Archbishop Carroll coach Lorraine Beers and her players preferred their games to go.

The Patriots made seven turnovers, didn’t come up with a number of groundballs, lost four draw controls and weren’t always sharp with their passing.

The second half was much different as the two-time defending PIAA Class AA girls lacrosse champs did almost everything well and rolled to a 20-5 decision over District 1 champion Mount St. Joseph to qualify for another state championship game, which will be played at Penn State University Saturday morning. The Patriots’ opponent will be Twin Valley, which defeated Bishop Shanahan, 6-5, in the other semifinal match.

“It’s nice to be back in the finals,” Beers said, “although it’s later and farther away than it’s ever been and the girls will have graduated almost two weeks before they play the game.

“But we do love to play lacrosse, and we’ll be happy to be there.”

Mount coach Becky Cartee-Haring had a lot of positive things to think about as her team’s season came to a close and she had to bid farewell to 11 seniors, five of whom were starters.

“This has been a team effort from the time we started back in March all the way through to today,” she said. “There are no egos on this team. They came through when they had to.

“We won our first district championship and we had a big win over Villa (Maria). Carroll’s a great team, and we played them well for the first half. The second half didn’t go the way we wanted. Our game plan had been to control the ball, but we just didn’t do that in the second half.”

In the final 25 minutes, Carroll earned the draw control advantage, 11-0, and made the most of its 15 shots, outscoring Mount, 11-1.

Chloe Bleckley scored two goals in each half for Carroll and came up with five draw controls. Lainey Straub (two assists), Catie McConaghy and Machaela Henry all got three goals for the Pats.

Straub’s goals all came on 8-meter shots.

“When we practice those kinds of shots every day, if (goalie) Bridget (Robinson) stops us or we shoot the ball into her we have to do 10 pushups,” Straub said. “And you don’t want to have to do that.”

Henry got three draw controls in the first half and added four in the second half in addition to her goal scoring. Ava Bleckley (one goal, one assist) chipped in with five draw controls and Sienna Golden had three for the Pats.

“I was still using my draw stick when I scored those goals,” she said. “It’s a little tougher controlling the ball, but I got used to it.

“Winning the draw is so important. You get the ball then you can go down and get the goal.”

Carroll got solid defensive efforts from defenders Ella Wright, Meg Sheridan, McConaghy, Jayanna Ramsey-Williams, Chloe Bleckley and Golden.

“We knew it was important for us to get groundballs,” said Sheridan, who earned a state championship medal with the Carroll basketball team in March. “When we got the ball, we made quick passes and kept it going up the field.

“All of us are so happy to be able to play for the state title again.”