On a chilly, misty evening which hardly seemed ideal for the region playoff opening round for any spring sports, it was a case of mixed results for the host Patuxent High School lacrosse teams last Friday as the girls suffered a 12-11 setback to McDonough before the Panthers boys overcame a slow start to upend Lackey 14-8 in 1A South Region contests.
In the girls’ game that kicked off the playoff doubleheader, McDonough avenged a prior 8-6 setback to the Panthers when the Rams started quickly and refused to relent amid a serious late rally from the hosts. Rams’ senior Miranda Benjamin scored all three of her team’s goals in the first quarter, had five in the first half and finished the contest with seven as Patuxent rallied from a 10-5 deficit late to make things interesting.
“I think the main difference between this week and last week is that we didn’t allow them to get in our heads,” said Benjamin, who is heading to McDaniel College this fall for women’s lacrosse. “Today when they started to play dirty we didn’t get off of our game.”
Benjamin scored her team’s first five goals and the Rams led 6-1 until the Panthers got one goal each from Regan Tharaldson and Summer Collins in the last 75 seconds of the first half to trim the gap to 7-3 at the intermission. Tharaldson and Benjamin traded goals early in the third quarter then Benjamin and Grace Lyon each scored for the Rams to push the margin to 10-5.
Lyon, who was responsible for winning most of the face-off draws for the Rams during the first three quarters, suffered an ankle injury shortly after scoring her second goal of the contest and was carried off the field by several coaches and teammates. Lyon was up and walking minutes later, however, but she did not return to the field and her absence in the circle was immediately noticed.
Collins ended the third quarter scoring with her third goal then Tharaldson notched the first two goals of the fourth quarter to bring the hosts with 10-8 with 7:27 remaining. Victoria Johnson gave the Rams some breathing room at 12-9 with just over four minutes remaining then Tharaldson and Collins each tallied once for the Panthers to bring the hosts within a goal with 59 seconds remaining, but they could not get the equalizer.
“I think we came in a little too confident and we had a slow start and we were always playing from behind,” said Tharaldson, who has signed her National Letter of Intent to attend Roanoke University for women’s lacrosse and attained her 200th career goal one week earlier in the Panthers’ 8-6 victory over McDonough. “We started playing better in the fourth quarter, but we could never quite catch up.”
Then in the boys’ game that followed, visiting Lackey twice led by three goals in the first quarter before the Panthers countered with a 6-0 run to take an 8-5 lead at the intermission en route to a 14-8 triumph.
The Patuxent boys (10-5) also scored the first two goals of the third quarter during a pivotal 8-0 run that spanned over 22 minutes of playing time before the Chargers finally ended that prolonged drought with just over two minutes remaining in the third quarter.
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