Girls lacrosse: York cruises past Glenbard West
On a cold, windy and, frankly, clammy evening, getting where it was warm was Priority 1 for the York girls lacrosse team Wednesday.
Scoring 7 goals in their first 7 shot attempts went a long way to making that happen for the Dukes in a West Suburban Silver game with visiting Glenbard West.
York beat the Hilltoppers 18-3 to improve to 8-3 overall and 3-1 in league, and got 6 goals from sophomore attack Jenna Hughes, and 3 apiece from junior midfielder Cate Duhig and senior attack Eileen O'Donell.
So … how about that weather? Actually, it wasn't as bad as you might think, despite an American flag that was stretched to its limits most of the contest.
"As long as there's not rain, we love to play in any weather," Duhig said. "While we're running, it's totally fine. I don't like to wear leggings. The breeze feels kind of good when you're running and you're playing in long sleeves."
Duhig got the scoring started for York at 22:51 with a shot in a scrum in front of the Glenbard West net. Forty-two seconds later, it was junior attack Erica Buckley who emerged from behind the net, curled around toward the crease and then blasted a shot in top shelf. Less than 30 seconds after that, sophomore midfielder Ellie Bernard got in the act with a penalty shot goal.
That's three shots, three goals. But the Dukes were just getting started, turns out.
Glenbard West got its first goal at 20:09 on a penalty shot by attack Sophia Kalivas, but then York got consecutive goals within 12 seconds of each other by O'Donell. Then it was Duhig again, who brought the ball up from midfield all alone, outraced an opponent then got wide open for a goal in the exact center of the net.
After the Hilltoppers scored again at 12:05, a tally from midfielder Jennifer Doran, York scored the next 8 goals, 4 off the stick of Hughes.
That made the second half academic.
"We kind of talked from the beginning to kind of rack up the score so that we could get a couple more rotations in the midfield and give everyone and get everybody playing some new positions," Duhig said.
York outshot the Hilltoppers 37-11, including a whopping 24-5 in the first half.
Dukes coach Ryan Walz raved about Hughes postgame.
"She's been on fire lately," Walz said. "Her groundballs, her going to goal hard, her aggressiveness has been outstanding. She's been at another level."
It was, of course, a tough night for Glenbard West, but credit the Hilltoppers for giving everything even when the contest was out of hand. Kalivas scored her second goal with 5:44 left in the game.
"We don't give up easily, we fight to the end," Glenbard West coach Laura Finfrock said. "We're fighting for groundballs, every 50-50 chance, we go for it. We have a lot of hard teams in our conference, and this is one of them, and this was a great eye opener for our ball control and our stick skills. I think we're just going to progress after a game like this and get better."
Added attack Tessa Erickson: "This one didn't go the way we wanted, but our last two games, we've been showing what we want to be working towards. We've made a point of pushing throughout the game no matter what the score is."