PIAA Class 3A Girls Lacrosse: Kate Stanton, Lions find success at the 8, overcome Cougars

CONCORD TWP. — Kate Stanton flicked home a low shot from eight meters with two and a half minutes to play Tuesday night and clinked sticks with her teammates like it was a summer shooting drill.

Never mind that the goal all but sealed a 10-5 win over Springfield in the PIAA Class 3A semifinals and the Lions’ first chance to play for a state title. Juxtaposed against the exquisite desperation that was Springfield fighting for possession most of the game, it presented a fitting display of the dominance Stanton and her teammates wrought.

Stanton scored three times in the second half, all on eight-meter shots, as the Lions pulled away from a sloppy first half to book a second win this postseason against the Central League champion Cougars. It sends them to Saturday’s state final against Owen J. Roberts (12 noon, Panzer Stadium at Penn State), with a chance to earn the program’s first PIAA title.

The semifinal was all about the ball, who had it and who didn’t take care of it. Mostly, it was Penncrest with a first crack at that, controlling 12 of 16 draws, Stanton with a game-high six. With Kathryn Harding dictating where the ball went on the draw and Penncrest’s superior speed getting to it on the ground, the Lions (21-4) could control play.

“We really worked well together and we realized both teams were doing turnovers and both teams needed to step up,” Stanton said.

“It’s a change defending for the most part of the game,” Springfield defender Lexi Aaron said. “We had to talk to our defense and stay positive and hope that our offense would get the draw. As a whole, our defense really performed well today.”

That didn’t matter in the first half, though, because neither team seemed all that keen on keeping the ball. The error-strewn game was tied at 1-all until Claire Lynch and Lylah Pompetti scored in the final minute to send the teams into the half knotted at two.

The Lions adjusted quicker, drawing eight-meter shots early and often. Stanton scored twice within 35 seconds. Kaitlyn Roth added two eight-meter goals, then set up Harding to make it 7-2 with 13:21 left.

“I think we switched out to how we were reacting to my faceguard, and it helped us to value transition goals,” Stanton said. “Springfield was really aggressive in the eight, and we were able to use that to our advantage and finish on the eight meters.”

“We’re definitely fast, but we need to know how to use that,” Roth said. “We need to hustle, and that helps us out.”

Springfield (21-3), which has rallied from big deficits this postseason, got within four at 12:30 thanks to Allie Hunter. But Harding used her height and soft touch to complete a hat trick, off behind-the-cage feeds from Adisyn Bernhardt and Pompetti to make it 9-3 with 9:14 to play. A long stretch of missed chances, including a couple of big saves by Sara Knasiak of Penncrest, meant Erin DeStefano’s goal at 4:21 only got Springfield within 9-4. The mountain was too tall to climb at that point.