Girls lacrosse: Neuqua Valley draws out win

In girls lacrosse if you control the draw, you can - and should - control the game.

That's what Neuqua Valley did Wednesday in its DuPage Valley Conference contest with rival Valley Lacrosse, the Metea Valley/Waubonsie Valley co-op team.

The Wildcats won a whopping 21 draws, compared to just 5 for Valley. Perhaps not surprisingly, they came away with a 20-6 victory to improve to 7-2 overall and 2-0 in the DVC.

Doing most of the damage at draw for Neuqua Valley were senior captains Brenda Anderson and Christine Corbin. Why is the draw so important?

"Just possession," Corbin said. "Starting out with the ball is super important and being able to keep that possession from the start."

Winning the draw is one thing, a task that's hard enough to do. But controlling the ball after winning the draw is a whole other matter. Control the draw, and you can score, essentially turning the game into a make it, take it proposition.

That's exactly what Neuqua Valley did this night. Anderson started on the draw for the Wildcats and won the first, which ended up in Corbin's stick 50 seconds later and she scored from 7 yards out.

Anderson won the next draw, and that led to a penalty shot goal by junior midfielder Lauren Reitzel at 23:38.

Then it was Anderson again winning the draw and benefitting herself by ending up with the ball on a right-to-left cross in front of the Valley net. After she deposited her shot into the center at 23:21, Valley assistant coach Rob Woolwine had seen enough and he called time.

"We always try to go for possession first," Anderson said. "Our middie line has such great chemistry that we can tell where we're going to place it, and we can get there really quick, so we just try to get possession most of the game, because that's where we get the goals from."

So what's the key to executing a successful draw?

"First is we try to get the ball on the back of our stick, because then we can control it pretty much anywhere," Anderson said. "Whoever is taking the draw sets up a certain way and the girls on the outside will be able to tell where it's going to go."

Neuqua Valley jumped out to a 14-3 halftime lead, which made the second half, and the running clock, academic, but look deeper. Of the 20 shots the Wildcats took, 14 were goals - and as no coincidence, they won 15 draws in that first half.

Corbin scored 3 goals and Anderson had 2, and junior attack Courtney Costello led the Wildcats with 6 goals, while Reitzel had 5.

It was a long night for Valley Lacrosse (6-3, 1-1), but it did get a pair of goals from senior midfielder Whitney Kueltzo. Junior midfielder Audrey Ehrler's goal with 14:28 left in the first half pulled Valley to within 4-2 of Neuqua Valley. But that's as close as it got.

"The biggest thing when you lose to a really good Neuqua team is to keep fighting," Woolwine said. "We can make some adjustments defensively when we play them again, and that's what we'll do. But the biggest thing is to tell the girls is to keep fighting and play for pride. It's all about pride when the score gets out of hand."

Added senior captain Caitlin Beacom: "I think we were pretty even as draw takers, they were just getting to the ball faster. They were outhustling us and outworking us and we just couldn't catch up. I think we can do a lot better, with practice and working on our fundamentals."