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Girls lacrosse: Neuqua Valley rolls past Glenbard West

One minute, 36 seconds.

That's all the time it took on a blustery Monday for the Neuqua Valley girls lacrosse team to build an insurmountable lead against visiting Glenbard West.

The Wildcats scored a pair of goals within 16 seconds of each other after winning the first two faceoffs of the game, courtesy of junior Peyton Metry and sophomore Caroline Perkins, both attacks. Then sophomore midfielder Lauren Reitzel added another with 23:24 left in the half.

That was all Neuqua Valley needed en route to a 19-2 win over the Hilltoppers, to improve to 2-0 overall and against the West Suburban Silver. The Wildcats beat Lyons Twp. 8-7 Thursday. They will face another WSC Silver opponent Thursday when they play Oak Park-River Forest.

"It's nice coming into a game believing that you're the stronger team," said Metry, who like Reitzel tallied four times this night. "The mentality coming in is the most important thing."

"I feel like lacrosse is a big mental game," Reitzel added. "You have to prepare for it mentally and physically."

That mental edge helped the Wildcats build fast on their lead. There was junior midfielder Christine Corbin with a goal at 20:18 and another from senior attack MaryFaye Keen at 18:48. Junior midfielder Brenda Anderson tallied at 15:05 with a drive down the middle with a shot into the right corner of the net. Sophomore Caroline Perkins added another 19 seconds later. Suddenly, the Wildcats were up 7-0.

They never looked back, and minor disappointments - like a near goal by sophomore attack Muneeza Shams at 11:48 - were ignored completely.

You may be noticing a pattern here: A lot of names next to the goals in the scoring column. And you'd be right. Eight players scored for Neuqua Valley - Metry and Reitzel with 4 apiece; Perkins with 3; Corbin and freshman attack Zoey Laipple with 2; and Anderson and senior attack Kaylee Garcia with 1.

The common theme for the Wildcats was blistering speed and astute stickhandling, something first-year coach John Scanlon has been emphasizing.

"We're definitely a fast team, and we're definitely deep enough where we can keep that speed up," he said. "Our attack is doing a great job in helping us out in that regard."

On the surface you'd think it was a tough night for the Hilltoppers, and while that was mostly true, there were several bright spots. Senior midfielder Nicole Lekatsos got Glenbard West on the scoreboard with a goal under the glove of Wildcats goalie Emma Litzer with 8:07 left in the first half. Senior Anne McKeown added another tally in a scrum in front of the Neuqua Valley net with 6:50 to go in the game.

But the Hilltoppers were hampered by the fact that one of their main offensive threats, junior Tessa Erickson, drew plenty of attention from the Wildcats' defense.

"There was a lot of pressure on the midfield," Erickson said. "We were focusing on trying to pass it up as opposed to having one player run it up all the time. We had a few pretty successful runs in which we were able to pass it all the way down the field, which was helpful."

Added Hilltoppers coach Laura Finfrock: "I think my girls played really well. I think we just played against a finesse team and that's what caught us off guard. I think the girls learned a lot from this game."

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