Manheim Township rallies to deny Exeter its first District 3 crown, 12-9
HARRISBURG >> To be the best you’ve got to beat the best.
Exeter gave that old axiom as good a run as the Eagles possibly could Wednesday evening at Central Dauphin’s Landis Field, in the District 3 3A girls’ lacrosse championship game. But the Blue Streaks showed why they are the district’s dominant club by rallying for a 12-9 victory, to claim gold for the ninth time in the competition’s 11-year history.
Exeter (18-4) was making its 11th consecutive D-3 appearance and second championship game. Both clubs have dates at the PIAA dance next week.
Trailing 7-5 at halftime, the top-seeded Blue Streaks (19-3) ripped off seven of the next nine goals, including five in a row at the end, to defend their district title. In doing so, Manheim Township reminded why it remains the gold standard in girls’ lacrosse in the D-3 region.
Lucy Svetic’s four goals for Manheim Township aced a hat trick from Exeter’s Isabella Karstien. The balance came down to poise and execution, of which the Streaks displayed the greater capacity after the break.
Exeter picked up a yellow card late in the first half and the champs capitalized, with a goal right before the break from Svetic and a second 40 seconds into the second half to slice the deficit to 7-6.
The Streaks finally pulled even at 9-all on a free shot goal from Svetic, for a hat trick, with 13:09 to play, then took the lead for good 1:09 later on a conversion from Megan Rice. Svetic’s fourth made it 11-9 with 6:24 left.
“We got a card and had to play down during that card and they got two goals during that car,” Rudy, the only head coach the Exeter program has ever had, said. “That definitely swung the momentum, hurt us. The first half, we executed everything perfectly; the second half, we got a little bit sloppy. We just sort of played, instead of playing our game.”
Unil Rice’s go-ahead tally, the Blue Streaks had not led since the 18:06 mark of the first half when Rice’s first goal gave her club a 2-1 lead. In between, the Eagles dictated much of the flow and built a lead as large as three goals, at 6-3, with just under 10 minutes to play in the opening half.
Karstien was a big reason why. The junior midfielder scored two of her three goals during a stretch when Exeter found the cage five times in a 7:42 stretch of the first half to make the threat of an upset a reality. Her third, with 22:57 to play, briefly held off the Streaks by extending Exeter’s edge to 8-6 before the roof caved in.
“I think we thought we had and we didn’t come out strong enough (in the second half),” Karstien said. “They scored those goals, it took our momentum away a bit and picked up theirs.
“They got in our heads. We weren’t talking that much, they were loud, helping each other. I think our heads kept going down every time they scored. We needed to pick our heads back up and we never really did.”
Svetic paced the Streaks by finding space in the circle or spearheading the attack down the middle.
“We weren’t playing our best game in the first half and there’s no denying that,” Svetic said. “So we got together at halftime and everybody knew we could play better. We knew we could beat this team and had to pick our energy up. That’s hard to do when you’re down at the half.”
Exter’s Broke Wisniewski and Ariana Kline added two goals for the Eagles.
Kline’s first was her club’s initial tally. Wisniewski’s first gave Exeter its first lead, at 3-2, 9:37 into the contest; her second gave the Eagles that aforementioned 6-3 edge with 9:33 to play in the opening half. Kline’s second marker was Exeter’s last. That marker made it 9-7, before Township closed with the contest’s final five goals.
