The Warriors took a loss on Senior Night.
By Kyle Wannen
In their past two games, the Wootton girl’s lacrosse team’s energetic attack took some time to get started and the team had to fight hard to come back and continue their undefeated season.
But the Patriots had no problems out of the gate Wednesday night in their game against Sherwood as they scored the first nine goals of the game en route to a 15-6 win. The Warriors (11-4) were held without a goal until there were less than two minutes remaining in the first half.
“Coming out 5-0 in the first couple of minutes of the game was huge,” said Wootton coach Anne Marie Ritzell. “We’ve been working on that all season, starting off strong, and tonight we definitely achieved that.”
“Our past two games we’ve been not doing so well in the first five minutes,” said midfielder Liza Kaplan. “In this game we knew we had to step it up because they were a better team.”
After barely touching the ball for the first five minutes of the game, the Patriots (10-0) quickly scored four straight goals, prompting a timeout by Warriors coach Mitch Rosenfeld. During the break, Ritzell told her team not to let up.
The message was received as her team then scored five more goals before the Warriors got two late goals from midfielders Liz Kubis and Sammi Smith. The Patriots had midfielders Carrie Bray, Kaplan and Joana Sonley score two first half goals each and also got great goaltending from Amelia Titus, who finished the game with nine saves.
After halftime the fired-up Warriors played with a very physical style and quickly got two goals from Kubis and midfielder Cali Siravo to cut the lead to 9-4. But Klatzkin assisted on a goal for teammate Raleigh Hanocek and quickly scored her second and third goals of the game to put Wootton back on top, 12-5.
“We knew they were going to come out aggressive just because they’re a good team,” said midfielder Julie Klatzkin. “We just kept our composure and didn’t get frustrated.”
Kubis then closed it to 12-6 with her third goal, but any comeback hopes were quickly doused as the Patriots received three late goals from Hanocek, Bray and Sonley to close out the game.
The Patriots have one game left to remain undefeated against Quince Orchard on Saturday.
“This is the first time in coaching that I’ve ever had an undefeated season so it’s really nice,” Ritzell said.