Girls lacrosse: Conant downs Palatine

Conant's aggressive second half play in its girls lacrosse game at Palatine was the difference in the Cougars' 11-5 victory Thursday night.

It was the Mid-Suburban West opener for both teams. The Cougars improved to 2-3 and 1-0 while the Pirates fell to 1-4 and 0-1.

"We had to get more intense and aggressive," said Conant coach Eric Jacobsen. "We talked about that Wednesday at practice. I knew Palatine, with their new coach (Oscar Flores), would have them come out and be competitive and for the first half they were."

Palatine went ahead 1-0 with 21:47 left in the first half on a goal by Carlyn Britt. The Cougars' Abbey DiSalvo countered to tie the game.

The Pirates scored back-to-back goals from Jasmine Lee and Madeline Birk to take a 3-1 lead with 11:40 left in the half.

DiSlavo scored again for the Cougars but Palatine countered with Jane Spencer scoring to give the Pirates their last lead at 4-2.

Hannah Shulman scored for the Cougars with 4:03 left to cut the lead to 4-3 at the break.

A goal by Britney Maldonado tied the score with 22:07 left in the game.

Shulamn then gave Conant the lead for good at 18:09.

"Their defense were coming up tight on me," said Shulman. "When I cut to the goal they were crashing on me. I looked for a cutter but there wasn't anyone there so I made the shot. We played a much better transition game in the second half. We really worked hard in practice this week so winning our first conference game was a good positive."

Moments later Shulman assisted on DiSalvo's third goal and the Cougars could not be stopped.

Mackenzie Lunkes scored her 4 goals in the game's last 15:11. Betsy Riley added another goal for the Cougars.

Palatine's Rachel Wheat scored late in the second half.

"We have had some issues coming out a little timid on defense," said senior defender Emily Weishaar. "I think once we got ourselves into the game we became more aggressive and we weren't afraid of contact. We knew after they took the 4-2 lead we had to tighten up the defense. We were able to get some turnovers and it turned into scores. We only gave up the one goal in the second half."

Flores felt it was a good learning experience.

"We really played well in the first half," he said. "They found seams in our defense in the second half. We have a young team and we have to learn. We know what we need to work on in practice."