AUBURN – Without looking at the scoreboard and watching from a distance, it would have been easy to assume Thursday afternoon’s girls’ lacrosse season opener between Cony and Edward Little was even.

Each squad spent about as much time as the other in the attacking zone, and while Edward Little defense appeared to struggle at times to contain the speedy Cony forwards, EL’s offense was patient, moving the ball around the perimeter.

The scoreboard told a completely different story.

Using their speed, the Rams knifed through the Eddies’ defense quickly and methodically, striking early and often on their way to a decisive 17-1 season-opening victory on the campus of Central Maine Community College.

“We’ve been focusing primarily on our defense early this season,” Cony coach Gretchen Livingston said. “That was our weaker spot in our first season as a varsity program, and we stepped up to that challenge today.”

“We were shooting, but we weren’t in the right position,” Edward Little coach Jess Somers said, acknowledging the Cony defenders had a lot to do with that. “We found we were waiting too long to shoot the ball, and we ended up out of position.”

The Cony offense was pretty good, too.

Ten different players scored for the Rams, and even goalkeeper Julie Bush recorded an assist on a long outlet to Macy Pagurko in the first half.

“They’re very quick, and they’re hard to defend,” Somers said. “And they have a lot of ‘quick,’ it’s not just one girl.”

“We’re fortunate to have a lot of versatile players,” Livingston said. “We have very few girls who are exclusively low or high players, which will help us in the long run.”

The Rams bolted out of the gate, scoring three goals in the first 8:08 of the game. Pagurko had a hat trick by the 20-minute mark, and the Rams led 8-0 at the half.

Cony swapped its forwards and defenders in the second half, and notched its ninth goal of the game just 1:25 in.

The Eddies finally got on the board at 4:49 of the second stanza when Jess Campbell bounced the ball past Bush on a longer EL possession.

That was the last the Eddies would sniff the net, though they hit the post twice.

On the other end, the Rams rattled off eight more in a row to close out the scoring.