It was a gorgeous Friday afternoon with lots of traffic when the JV Dons hustled their way up to Novato to make it in time for an early 4:30 game against the powerful San Marin team. The time from school release to game time with Friday traffic was tight. However, even a short warmup could not stop these young women. They won their second game of the year and that makes 20 in a row for this scrappy squad of new starters and reserves!
It may have been the delay or just because of the long ride but the players started out slowing falling behind 2 to 0 very quickly. However, after a time out and some solid defense from the Maddie “Little General” Obertello, Julia “Lightening” Lyons, Molly the “Wall” Jones, Ruby the “Glove” Bogan the Dons were allowed to get the ball and have their offense do the rest.
With Middies Ella Culbertson, Allie Schofield, Svea Staino running like the wind and passing darts down the field they were able to move the ball and set up Cate Mercier (2), Talia Tichenor(1) for goals. Dons took a 3 to 2 lead with less than 30 seconds to go in the first half. Unfortunately due to a penalty shot on a very tough call, the score at half time was 3 to 3.
The San Marin team was fantastic and had two players that could start for most Varsity Teams. However these pesky hustling ladies know that the second half is their half and they came out on fire. Samantha Swift stole the ball and passed it around to other attackers Stella DeGroot and Savanna Martinez and the middies before finding her way into putting the ball into the back of the net and this exciting team took a quick second half lead 4 to 3. The Goalies Persephone Quinn and Chloe Lloyd along with the defense continued to thwart the San Ramon attack. With Goals by Ella Culbertson and Cate Mercier (2)) on beautiful assists by Allie Schofield and Ella the Dons took a 7-4 lead at the end of the Third Period. However, the game was not in the bag by any means.
The Fourth Quarter started and those aggressive and athletic San Marin players took a fast break for a goal and then the refs called a penalty so the Dons were down a player and San Marin scored a second goal. All of a sudden the San Marin was only one goal down with 8 minutes to play and the score was 7-6. The Dons called a timeout and got their heads together on the sideline. This team was not going to be denied that night. They came out and played solid defense by everyone on the team including phenomenal redefense by the Attack players. Finally getting the ball and setting up for a beautiful shot by Cate on an incredible assist by Svea…Dons 8 and San Ramon 6 with a little over four minutes to play. Well all the Dons had to do was keep the ball on their end of the field after winning the Draw but that was not the case as a couple of turnovers sent the ball back to San Ramon who pushed and tried to score. That was not going to happen against the defense of the Little General, Lightning, the Wall and the Glove. The Dons finally got the ball back again with 32 seconds left and ran out the clock for a hard fought win against a great opponent. Dons WIN 8-6.
Friday come out and see this amazing new group of players for the JV Lacrosse Lady Dons play the team from Carondelet on Friday at 5:30 as the visiting team will be looking to avenge their loss last year at the hands of our team!
GOOOOOOOOO DONS!
