AUBURN — The St. Dominic Academy Saints and the Morse Shipbuilders entered Tuesday’s girls’ lacrosse contest both undefeated in Class B North. The game lived up to its billing and featured a “sudden victory overtime” to decide a victor with the game tied a seven.
Caroline Gastonguay’s third goal of the game gave the Saints the 8-7 victory with 1:16 remaining of a three-minute overtime off a free position after Morse received its fourth yellow card of the contest.
“We came into (this game) as we need to have fun no matter what,” Caroline Gastonguay said. “We knew we are going to compete hard as we could. We competed at our hardest and it paid off. I think we were a little nervous coming in because it was such a big game, but after we got into it and scored a few goals, we got more confident. We held the ball most of the game on our end. We took control of the game.”
She was looking to fake the shot high and shoot low on the game-winning goal. Goalies have a hard time with that, according to Gastonguay.
The Saints improve to 9-0, while Morse drops to 9-1, and the Saints move into the top slot in B North.
Morse coach Linda Levesque was pleased with her team’s effort.
“It was a tough, hard-fought battle for sure,” Levesque said. “The thing we are most proud of as coaches, especially playing a man down, and a couple of men down a couple times, five to three at one point, (St. Dom’s) could have ran away with it. We dug in, came back and had a chance to win it like they did, but you know it’s sudden victory. The first one wins. We are real proud of what we did and showed guts — we battled very hard.”
The Shipbuilders sent the game into overtime down a man when Maddy Olsen found Isabella Monbouquette, who found the back of the net with 2:37 to play. Both teams had a chance to win in regulation, with Morse having the best opportunity with 36 seconds left after the Shipbuilders hit the post.
The teams traded goals throughout the second half when the Saints built 3-2 lead after 25 minutes. St. Dom’s had a few opportunities to break the game open in the first seven minutes with multiple free position opportunities, but Morse goalie Zenaide McCarthy made several key saves — nine total.
“She made some key stops for us,” Levesque said of McCarthy. “Again, St. Dom’s pressures the ball all over the field and we managed to push through it and have a chance to win. That’s all you can ask. It could have gone the other way hard. We kept our chins up.”
The Saints usually play their best lacrosse in the second half.
“It usually takes us a half (to get going),” St. Dom’s coach Leslie Klenk said. “We are a second-half team as we are discovering this spring. It takes us some time to get rid of our jitters, settle down and play our game. I think we did that in the second half. This is the toughest competition that we had all season. We were worried about this game and we prepared really hard, we were lucky to come up on top.”
Madison Savary tied the game at three for the Shipbuilders nearly three and half minutes into the second half.
The Saints finally broke through when Gastonguay gave the Saints the 4-3 lead off a free position at the 6:08 mark. Nearly two minutes later, Isabelle Paulus tied the game at four, with Olsen notching the assist.
“I don’t think it frustrated us, I think it made us work a little harder,” Gastonguay said of the missed free positions earlier in the half.
Avery Lutraykowski notched her third goal of the game when the Saints retook the lead with nearly 14 minutes left to play. She gave the Saints a 3-1 lead in the first half. Both of those goals were carbon copies of each other when she scooped up a Hail Mary pass off the ground in midfield and ran into the attacking zone where she fired the ball into the net.
“She’s a competitor and she’s going to keep on trying it, trying until she gets it,” Klenk said of Lutraykowski first two goals. “That’s what we expect of her and that’s how she plays.”
Olsen notched her second goal to tie the game up at six halfway through the second half. She opened up the scoring 2:14 into the game off a free position to give the Shipbuilders the 1-0 lead.
Gastonguay notched her second of the game at the 15:25 mark to give the Saints the 6-5 lead.
Morse quickly responded 1:21 later when Amanda Gagne notched her lone goal.
Emma Theriault added the Saints’ seventh goal with under six minutes to play. It was her second goal. Her first goal tied the game at one when she moved right-to-left behind the goal and stuck the ball in on the top shelf on the back hand.
Paige Daigle scored Morse’s second goal of the game with a little over four minutes left to play in the first half.
nfournier@sunjournal.com
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