Radnor can’t sustain hot start in loss to Conestoga

TREDYFFRIN — For five minutes, sixth-seeded Radnor seemed poised to prove those who designed the point system that determines seeding for the PIAA District 1 girls lacrosse tournament wrong.

It was those last 45 minutes of the quarterfinal matchup on Teamer Field Saturday that belonged to the home team, No. 3 Conestoga.

The Pioneers, who had handed the Raiders their only Central League loss of 2019, came back from the early deficit and claimed a 14-10 decision. With the win, Conestoga (16-3) advances to Tuesday semifinals against No. 2 Garnet Valley (18-2) and qualified for the PIAA Class 3A Tournament.

Radnor (15-5) will host Downingtown East Tuesday afternoon in a play-back game. The winner advances to the state tournament.

Julia Rigolizzo sandwiched a pair of free-position goals around a score by Sarah Nelson to help Radnor claim a 3-0 lead before Saturday’s game was five minutes old.

Conestoga’s answer was three goals in three minutes — two by Sydney Sloan, the other from Julia Littlewood — to get even. Sloan’s third goal closed out the scoring in the opening half, with Conestoga ahead, 7-6.

The Pioneers scored seven more goals after the halftime break, with Rachel Clark, who was held off the scoreboard in the opening 25 minutes, getting four of those goals.

“We did a good job of containing Rachel in the first half by face-guarding her,” Radnor coach Brooke Fritz said. “In the second half, we dropped out of it because she was freeing herself up over the restraining line, and she is really hard to stop when she drives from the top.

“We never got momentum after the first three goals. We had a few moments when we really needed to capitalize, but we would follow up with an error instead of a goal. And that killed us.”

An important part of the Pioneers’ second-half success was draw controls. Clark got the ball to Sloan five times from the circle.

“We know each other well,” Sloan said. “She knows what to expect from me and where I’m going to be in order to get the ball. “When we beat Radnor before, we knew they would really want to come after us the next time we played. They’re always such a good team and have always been one of our big rivals.”

Clark made a draw control with her team up by two goals with 7:34 to play, then Sloan had a key DC after her team took a three-goal lead and another after teammate Jane Bailey closed out the scoring.

Conestoga got a solid defensive effort from goalie Sam Centofante, who made 11 saves. A big stop by Centofante on Tori DiCarlo with three minutes to play made it possible for ’Stoga to keep Radnor scoreless for the final eight mintues and 38 seconds.

“The best thing is that if a goal is scored on me, we come together right away, figure out what went wrong, and make sure it doesn’t happen again,” Centofante said. “I know everyone understood that if we won this game, we’d be going to states. And facing Radnor got us even more excited about playing today. We knew their style of play because we had played them earlier in the season.”

Rigolizzo scored four times, and Ellie Mueller added two goals, an assist and seven draw controls.

“Conestoga seemed to capitalize on their caused turnovers more often than not,” Fritz said. “Their goalie did a great job and their defense was difficult to penetrate. We are a strong offensive team this year, but they really kept us out of (scoring position).”

Conestoga coach Amy Orcutt recently lost junior midfielder Cam Evitts for the season because of a stress fracture.

“We focused and worked so hard getting ready to play this game,” Orcutt said. “Everybody we put out there has really been doing what we’ve asked of them. We’ve had to move people around, and some girls are getting more playing time now. And they are coming through.”