Leonardtown girls lacrosse rallies past Calvert

After trailing through much of the contest and by as many as five goals on two occasions, the Leonardtown High School girls lacrosse team rallied to edge Calvert 11-10 in overtime on a chilly, windy evening in Prince Frederick last Friday.

After watching the Raiders trim the deficit to 9-7 at the end of the third quarter when Leonardtown got two goals in the final minute, Calvert’s Danica Lanthier gave the Cavaliers a 10-7 lead early in the fourth. But the Raiders rallied to draw even with three goals over the last seven minutes with freshman Brielle Redmond getting the equalizer just before the final horn sounded.

Leonardtown senior Julia Mattingly then won the draw to start the five-minute overtime and the Raiders never surrendered the possession. After moving the ball around the perimeter for two minutes, Alaina Burks was awarded a free possession penalty stroke and the Raiders sophomore delivered a quick shot that lifted the visitors to an 11-10, sudden death victory.

“When you go out there for the draw, you just focus on making sure you get that possession,” said Mattingly, who has already signed her National Letter of Intent to attend the University of Akron where she will play women’s lacrosse. “Once we got that possession I knew that we would find a way to score. Those last two minutes of regulation were really intense.”

Calvert had the chance to run out the last minute of play while still deep in its own end, but the Raiders forced a turnover and eventually got the ball to Redmond, who scored just before the final horn sounded. It was a tough setback or the Cavaliers, who got five goals from Stevens and four more from Buckmaster in a losing cause.

“It’s just the second game of the season,” Buckmaster said. “We played really well in the first half, but we weren’t able to put it away in the second half. I think we’ll definitely learn from this and move on.”

Calvert got a late first period goal from senior Payton Stevens for a 4-3 lead and the Cavaliers promptly scored the first four goals of the second period to extend the margin to 8-3 before taking a 9-5 lead to the intermission. Leonardtown tallied the only two goals of the third quarter to trim the gap to 9-7, but the Cavaliers opened the fourth quarter scoring with a goal from Danica Lanthier.

Leonardtown rallied to draw even at 10-all on one goal each from Burks, Mattingly and Redmond then Burks ended the drama on the first possession of the overtime period with a shot on a free possession.