LEWISTON – Earlier in the season, Lewiston girls’ lacrosse coach Don Jalbert called the Mt. Ararat program his team’s Mount Olympus.
Tuesday afternoon, the Blue Devils conquered that mountain.
After spotting the Eagles a quick 2-0 lead, the Blue Devils assumed controlled and captured a 10-7 victory.
“We’ve never beaten them,” said Jalbert. “They’re an established program. We’ve had games with a one- or two-goal difference with them before. This is a huge one for us.”
Mt. Ararat (3-4) gained control in the first few minutes with Kelsey Fenwick and Erin Lacey (two goals) scoring on the Eagles offensive set, but Lewiston wasted little time in responding. After Lacey scored with 19:38 remaining in the first half, the Blue Devils (4-2) got goals from Caitlin Anthoine (three goals) and Marina MacDonald (two goals) in the next 4:35.
“We didn’t do anything differently,” said Jalbert. “We just woke up.”
Kelsey Varney’s first goal snapped a 3-3 tie and the Blue Devils led the rest of the way. Anthoine’s second goal put a capper to the first-half scoring, which saw Lewiston maintain a 6-4 advantage.
With teammate Mallory Long holding the ball near the top of the fan, another Lewiston player standing next to Anthoine cut through the middle drawing a defender with her. That left Anthoine wide open on the far post, and Long found her for an easy score.
Varney put the Blue Devils up 7-4 less than five minutes into the second half, as she collected a feed in front from Lindsey Dostie, and fired a shot past goalie Lauren Frank (nine saves).
The young (15 sophomores) Eagle squad rallied for a pair of scores from reserve Rachel Bernier, forcing Jalbert to call a quick time out to settle his squad down.
“We’ve had a couple of games we had leads late and lost them,” said Jalbert.
It didn’t take long for the Blue Devils to regain the momentum. Just 25 seconds later, Dostie set up behind the Mt. Ararat net and found a cutting Varney for the score to put Lewiston back up by two goals.
“We were trying to spread out the fan and cut diagonally,” said Varney, who would net three goals of her four goals in the second half and help the Blue Devils pull away.
All game long, the Blue Devils picked apart the zone defense on the perimeter of the fan. The inlet pass would come well before the defensive rotation.
“Our defense wasn’t as sharp as normal,” said Mt. Ararat coach Sam Chard. “Our communication wasn’t there today and they capitalized. They had players wide open coming down from the top of the fan and scored quite a few goals from four meters out.”
“Defensively we played real well,” said Jalbert. “(We) came with (an offensive) plan and worked the plan. We had it on both ends.”
Comments are no longer available on this story