Pats power past Bulldogs, move into semis

Jacob Marrocco
Posted 5/26/15

Pilgrim High School girls’ lacrosse head coach Tom Flanders told his team not to play with any fear entering the playoffs, and it showed in their opener.

The third-seeded Pats started their …

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Pats power past Bulldogs, move into semis

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Pilgrim High School girls’ lacrosse head coach Tom Flanders told his team not to play with any fear entering the playoffs, and it showed in their opener.

The third-seeded Pats started their third Division-III postseason run in as many years with a 12-3 defeat of the sixth-seeded Westerly Bulldogs at home on Thursday.

The Pats (9-2) used an 11-goal first half to build an insurmountable lead and saw scores from six different players. Senior midfielder and captain Emma Reilly and junior midfielder Sophia Deluca each recorded hat tricks, while attackers Hannah Page and Paula Cavanagh each had two.

“Usually in the playoffs you start a little uneasy and it takes a little while to get into it, [but] I think they just went after it,” Flanders said. “They could sense there was a little bit of that on the other side and they just built on it and capitalized on it and the goals started to become contagious.”

Pilgrim sophomore goalkeeper Alexandra Pouliot had a relaxed first 25 minutes, only facing six shots from the Bulldogs. Westerly’s netminder, senior Kyra McCormick, was not as lucky as she faced a barrage of Pilgrim shots early.

After a shot attempt was thrown past the left side of Pouliot 40 seconds into the action, the Pats dominated possession. Pilgrim charged down the other end and Reilly put her team on the board first with a put-back goal following a save from McCormick. A couple of minutes later, Deluca beat three defenders in front of McCormick and sent a shot past the goalkeeper for a 2-0 lead.

The Pilgrim attack kept coming when Page passed the ball from behind the net to Deluca, who rocketed a shot past McCormick on her way down to the ground. Reilly followed up with another score to give the Pats a four-goal advantage just 10 minutes into the game.

Reilly and Deluca continued their assault. Deluca took a pass and sent it wide left of McCormick, while McCormick saved a shot from Reilly on the right side of the net. Westerly could not keep Pilgrim out of the offensive end for long enough, though, and Deluca bounced a goal past McCormick with 12 minutes to go in the first half.

“They were quality shots,” Flanders said. “They were taking quality shots. They were taking care of the ball. They were making catches that they should catch, they were keeping the ball off the ground and they were doing everything that we preach on a daily basis.”

Reilly soon after jolted past defenders to put another attempt past McCormick and extend the lead to six. Page got on the board herself after holding the ball for about 30 seconds, twisting left and right only a few feet from McCormick, before eventually cutting right and bouncing the shot past McCormick.

Page mimicked her assist to Deluca from earlier, but this time she was on the scoring end. Page leapt for a pass high in the air and, as she came down, threw it past McCormick for her second straight score. Junior midfielder Kendra Tantimonico joined the stat sheet moments later when she took a pass from Paula Cavanagh and hesitated before bouncing it into the net.

The Pats had a 9-0 lead, but kept piling on the insurance. Paula Cavanagh broke away near midfield and sent a cross-body shot past McCormick for her first of the day. Senior captain and midfielder Emily Fluette registered a goal of her own with 2:34 left in the half to bring the advantage to 11. Pouliot secured her first-half shutout when she made a knee save on a shot from sophomore midfielder Stephanie Muccio.

“I told [Pouliot] you must have been seeing beach balls because it was really clear that she was seeing the ball really, really well,” Flanders said. “[She was] calm, cool and collected in there, didn’t get flustered, because she did see some shots. We heard it come off her stick, we heard it come off her shin pads, we heard it come off her chest. She was making those saves. We had a lot of stars tonight, and Alex was certainly one of those stars.”

Pouliot continued to make stops in the second half, as the Westerly offense broke out a bit. Junior attacker Emily Sullivan had four consecutive scoring chances, one of which appeared to hit one of the interior poles of the net and bounce out, but was not ruled a goal. It was on her fourth attempt that she split the Pilgrim defense and shot the ball past Pouliot to end the shutout.

The Pats responded, though, with junior Hannah Johnson connecting with Paula Cavanagh, who scored her second of the game to bring the lead back out to 11.

The Bulldogs (6-5) added on a couple more goals, but ultimately could not figure out Pouliot and the Pilgrim defense. Senior Sarah Garvey ran down the middle of the Pilgrim defense and found junior captain and attacker Meghan Crawford open on the left side for a goal. The final tally came when Sullivan maneuvered past junior defenseman Madison Yehle for her second score.

Crawford later bounced a shot wide left of the net, and Pouliot soon after made two consecutive saves on attempts within 10 seconds of each other. Sullivan looked to record a hat trick with a shot to the right corner of the net, but Pouliot was there. She made 16 saves on the night.  

Pilgrim will face No. 2 Chariho (10-1) on the road tonight in the semifinal round at 6 p.m. The Pats fell at Chariho, 9-5, on April 30 and lost to the Chargers in the championship game last season.

“There’s no reason to be playing afraid,” Flanders said. “We’ve come in second the last two years, and attribute some of those things to inexperience, losing possession of the ball and things like that. We don’t want to be victims of that again. This is a great opportunity and [Thursday] was the first step in the process and they went out and seized the day.”

The winner will advance to the Division III final to play either No. 1 Classical or No. 4 Johnston at Brown University’s Stevenson Field on Saturday at 1 p.m.

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