St. Paul’s girls lacrosse coach Mary Gagnon admits her second-ranked team is inexperienced on offense. Hit hard by graduations, the Gators don’t have a single senior among their primary scoring threats.
As No. 6 Glenelg Country learned Monday, however, the Gators’ defense is quite a different story.
Paced by the stellar play of its senior-laden unit, led by goalie Susan Radebaugh (Florida) and defenders Christina King (Georgetown) and Kira Balis (Clemson), host St. Paul’s held the Dragons to one goal over the first 23 minutes, building an early seven-goal lead before cruising to a 14-4 win in a key early-season Interscholastic Athletic Association of Maryland A Conference matchup.
“We have a very young team, especially offensively. Our senior leadership is on the defense, so they’re like our backbone,” Gagnon said. “I feel like when our defense plays well, it trickles down to our offense.”
That was certainly the case in this one.
With its defense consistently causing turnovers and forcing low-percentage shots, St. Paul’s (5-1 overall, 3-0 IAAM A Conference) — ranked No. 5 in the nation by Inside Lacrosse and No. 13 in the USA Lacrosse — time and again set up good scoring opportunities for Florida-bound junior Caroline Hoskins (five goals), as well as juniors Marleigh O’Day (Clemson) and Riley Vasile (Southern California), who added three goals and two assists each.
“We’re definitely a young team, but we’re starting to get the kinks out,” Hoskins said. “Everyone has stepped up. We’ve had a lot of our upperclassmen take on some serious roles, and I think it also speaks a lot about our culture. I think we’re just really close this year, and I think that’s helping us a lot.”
Senior Katie Gorski (Charlotte) and junior Jess Doreen (Virginia Tech) each had a pair of goals for Glenelg Country (2-2, 1-2), which entered the game ranked No. 8 in the nation by Inside Lacrosse and No. 17 by USA Lacrosse. But despite winning six of the first eight draws, the Dragons trailed 8-1 late in the second quarter.
Radebaugh consistently thwarted their best shots, including several from close range, finishing with nine saves.
“My defense was forcing low-angle shots and making it easy … making me look better,” Radebaugh said. “They did what we practice.”
For Glenelg Country’s new coach, Chrissy Adair, the performance provided a roadmap for what her team will need to focus on in practice after losing several key players to graduation.
“I think we came in knowing we were going to have a couple hard games in the beginning [of the season], and now it really shows areas that we have to work harder on and figure out,” said Adair, whose team also fell to national and Baltimore Sun No. 1 McDonogh, 12-5, on Wednesday. “I think our offense today was just not clicking. We went away from what was working for us to doing some more individual stuff. Not working the ball around, not passing as much. So I think that really hurt us, and our shot selection was not great.”
Goals: GCS — Gorski 2, Doreen 2; SP — Hoskins 5, Vasile 3, O’Day 3, Vaughan, Stewart, Munsell.
Assists: GCS — Doreen; SP — O’Day 3, Vasile 2, Vaughan 2, Porter, Lim.
Saves: GCS — Eastwood 2; SP — Radebaugh 9.
Halftime: St. Paul’s, 8-2
