NORTH EAST — When this year’s group of seniors for Perryville girls’ lacrosse where freshman, most spent time as members of the junior varsity squad. Being the only JV team in Cecil, the Panthers faced programs from across Harford County. The benefit of playing JV came with getting experience. The drawback was the JV team never won a game that year.
As those freshman rose up the ranks over the next three years, the once JV players transformed Perryville’s varsity program into a perennial state playoff qualifier. Similar to the previous two seasons, this spring is no different.
Perryville captured its third straight region lacrosse title on Monday in a 14-4 win over Rising Sun. The victory marks the third consecutive year the Panthers will compete in the Class 1A state playoffs. Perryville will visit Loch Raven in the state quarterfinals.
Senior Samantha Peterson estimated their JV team may have scored just six goals that season.
“To see that improvement from freshman year to now is crazy,” Peterson said. “I’m very proud of ourselves.”
Melina Christofano said she started playing the sport after a friend convinced her to give it a try, despite having never played before. For the Perryville senior, the growth of her team has been the most impressive feat.
“It’s really cool to be able to see our progress through all of this coming in from my freshman year,” Christofano said. “I’ve just seen a lot of growth with all the girls.”
After taking a four-goal lead into the half, Perryville’s offense scored six unanswered goals in the third quarter to balloon its lead to 10. Sarah Kilby scored three of her four goals in the quarter with two assists coming from Nadelie Adams. Alongside her two assists, Adams finished the night with two goals. Sarah Murrell and Macy Forrest added three more scores for the Panthers in the third.
Murrell led the game in scoring with five goals, plus an assist.
“We give each other the look to know when to pass the ball or when we are going to be open,” Adams said of her play with Kilby. “We have our own plays that no one else, even some people on the team don’t even know.”
In the first quarter, Rising Sun’s defense created turnovers and generated offensive opportunities on the other end of the field. The Tigers put eight shots on goal across the first and second quarters with scores from Emma Lucky and Riley Brickey. Brickey’s goal at the 2:35-mark of the opening quarter put Rising Sun within a score. Perryville outscored the Tigers 4-1 across the remainder of the half.
Alongside Brickey and Lucky, Tori Heath and Izzy Smith tallied goals for Rising Sun.
“It was tough, their sticks were there on our backs, their defense was doing great,” Perryville head coach Mary Dunman said of Sun’s defense. “Their defense had our number and we had to adapt and go wider and start moving more, that’s where you saw all of them actually moving away and being able to open up for cuts.”
After moving to the Chesapeake Division this past spring, Perryville hoped the gauntlet of Harford County programs would prepare the Panthers for the level of competition they would face in the state tournament. The task of reaching the playoffs is complete. Now, the defending region champions will get to see what they learned throughout the regular season.
“It definitely helped us a lot, to see what we expect to be on the field instead of just blowing out a team,” Adams said. “It really showed us how to work together as a team and to be able to play and go against harder teams.”
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