PEABODY — The No. 14 Bishop Fenwick girls lacrosse team is on to the round of 16 after an impressive showing Monday, defeating No. 19 Bishop Stang 17-3.
The Crusaders’ attack was on full display, dominating possession early and creating chance after chance. However, Stang got to the scoreboard first – off a broken play – five minutes into the action.
Early in the half, Fenwick was looking for an extra pass instead of a shot, until senior midfielder Kayla Carlin took it upon herself to even things up with a darting run through Stang’s defense (1-0).
Once the Crusaders saw that first goal go in, it was pure domination the rest of the way.
“I thought we worked really hard as a team in both our ride and offensive transition – getting the ball quickly down the field and stopping them from getting to our defensive end,” Fenwick coach Jill Robinson said. “I think that’s what really controlled the game, and the score.”
One thing that was noticeable: the desire from the Crusaders to track down loose balls.
“We always say, ‘Never give up on the ball. If you make a mistake, you have to be the first one back and win the ball back,’” Robinson said.
A perfect example of that came from sophomore Kiley Bloom, who lost the ball, reset, and forced the ball loose from a Stang midfielder. From there, she recovered the ground ball before scoring to give the Crusaders an 8-1 lead.
Fenwick dominated draws, too.
“For our draw control today, Molly Sullivan really owned it. Lauren Woods also had five wins so right there, that’s 10 draw controls just from two girls. If we can control the tempo of the game, it all starts with the draws,” Robinson said. “We’ve been working really hard all season on our draw.”
Fenwick continued to dictate the game, running impressive sets into the second half. With a 15-3 advantage, the Crusaders ran a play for senior Bella Noble. The play worked to perfection as Noble cut through the defense and scored her first goal of the season.
Robinson was thrilled to be moving on.
“It’s great to advance,” Robinson said. “This is my first year with the team. They’ve had multiple coaches in the past four years. Now we have our culture set. This was our main goal at the beginning of the season, so we accomplished that.”
Although the Crusaders controlled the game from start to finish, Robinson believes her team can still improve.
“We definitely need to improve on controlling our offense,” Robinson said. “Instead of taking looks from outside of the ‘eight,’ we need to make sure we’re taking good open shots.”
Hanna Bettencourt led all players with four goals, while Breanna Genzale and Carlin each netted hat tricks for Fenwick. Genzale led the team with four assists.
No. 14 Fenwick will now travel to No. 3 Cohasset with the date and time to be announced.
