By Ryan Mink
rmink@digitalsports.com
The second a free position shot was called near the end of a second overtime in Tuesday’s WCAC girls lacrosse championship, junior Shannon Lechner shouted her sister’s name and made eye contact.
Shannon and sophomore sister Kelly Lechner simply made eye contact and nodded. They had practiced this exact moment for years in their back yard.
As soon as the whistle blew, Shannon passed to Kelly, who took three steps and slipped the game-winning goal into the top left corner with 20.4 seconds remaining to give Good Counsel a 12-11 win over Bishop Ireton at the University of Maryland’s Ludwig Field.
It’s Good Counsel’s sixth straight WCAC championship and second straight over the Cardinals. The win also marks Good Counsel’s 57th straight WCAC victory.
“She did all the work; I just kind of placed it in in the last second,†Kelly said. “We knew we were going to do something together.â€
Kelly also scored the game-tying goal with 59.6 seconds left in the first overtime. She tallied four goals overall for the Falcons, while Shannon tallied one.
After being dominated in the first half, Good Counsel (18-2) held a three-goal lead with about five minutes left in regulation. That’s when Ireton dug in, scoring three straight and two by Ashton Hellmuth (5 goals) to tie the game with 2:18 remaining.
Hellmuth scored the first goal in overtime to give the Cardinals (18-3) their first lead since the first half, but Kelly had an answer.
“I knew if I got the pass there without a defender deflecting it that she would make the shot,†Shannon Lechner said.
Bishop Ireton had all the momentum early on, just as it did last year when the Cardinals took a five-goal lead at one point. The Cardinals dominated the draws and led 17-3 in shots with five minutes left in the first half.
But Bishop Ireton only had a two-goal lead at 5-3 to that point partially because it saw three shots go off the post but mostly because of Good Counsel junior goalie Christina Sheridan. Sheridan, who was recruited to play at Good Counsel by the Lechner sisters when Sheridan was in 7th grade, made 16 saves and was named the game’s MVP.
While Good Counsel scored on all three of its shots to that point and four of its first five, Ireton finished just five of its first 17 shots.
“I knew I had it in me and I knew my team had it in us,†Sheridan said. “It’s a little bit of pressure but you kind of get used to it being a goalie because there’s always going to be pressure.â€
Good Counsel finally started to win some draws and went on a three-goal run to end the first half with a 6-5 lead, including two straight goals by Kelly Lechner. The Falcons then scored another three straight behind sophomores Caileigh Sindall (2 goals) and Caroline Scanlon (2 goals) to open the second half and take a 9-5 lead.
“We knew once we started getting the draws everything would pick up,†Shannon Lechner said.
“We definitely gained a lot of confidence but we definitely knew we didn’t have it,†Kelly Lechner added. “That showed when they kept creeping up on us. Ireton’s a great team and they gave us a run for our money.â€
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