SALEM, Va. – Gettysburg women’s lacrosse coach Carol Cantele was still in a state of sogginess when it was time to meet with the media on Saturday afternoon at Roanoke College.
Getting dry could wait. It was time to bestow some praise upon her players.
“Today’s game was electric,” Cantele said following the Bullets’ 12-7 win over Salisbury in the Division III tournament semifinals at Kerr Stadium – much of the game played during a steady rain. “… Our moments that we had really made a big impact. We took advantage of our sets both offensively and defensively.”
Now Gettysburg (20-2) will try to keep up the good work one more day, when it goes for a second consecutive national championship against Middlebury in Sunday’s 2 p.m. final.
The Panthers (20-2) beat TCNJ 13-9 in the second semifinal.
Both Cantele and her winning counterpart in Game 2 – Kate Livesay – described their journeys to victory as a common storyline for contests with something like a spot in a national title game on the line. Both Gettysburg and Middlebury jumped out to early leads, withstood their respective opponents’ rallies, and then eventually found the right rhythm of play – both on offense and defense – to pull away down the stretch.
For Gettysburg, getting out to a 4-0 lead was the result of dominating possession and preventing the Sea Gulls (19-2) from finding very many quality shots when they did have the ball.
“We made some incredible defensive stops,” Cantele said. “Our defense worked really hard all week learning the tendencies of Salisbury – they’re a really lethal team, and I felt we did a phenomenal job sticking to the game plan.”
Courtney Patterson scored all three of her goals in the first half, the last of those made the score 5-1 with under nine minutes to play before halftime. She and the rest of Gettysburg’s attackers were getting all these high-percentage scoring opportunities thanks, in part, to the draw-taking play of Steph Colson, who controlled nine draws on Saturday, giving her a Centennial Conference-record 131 for the season.
The Sea Gulls, in fact, managed to win just one draw in the first half, and just six overall. It forced them to chase more than they would have preferred.
“[Gettysburg] was doing a good job of executing well on offense and made some good stops on defense early,” Salisbury coach Jim Nestor said. “We’ve had games like this, and we knew we could battle back. It was just a matter of when we’d do it.”
The momentum in Game 1 started to turn in the final minutes of the first half, when the Sea Gulls cut Gettysburg’s lead to 5-2 with a goal by Courtney Fegan.
Then, after the Bullets’ Liza Barr made the score 6-2 with a goal in the first three minutes of the second half, Salisbury picked up back-to-back scores for the first time in the game to make the score 6-4 – and the Gulls had possession again, hoping to cut their deficit to one.
“We just had to get the ball to the people who were open,” said Salisbury attacker Krissy Murphy, who scored once and also had four assists. “It was always somebody different today, and we just needed to find those people.”
It appeared the Sea Gulls had found the right person again with a little over 21 minutes to play in the game, but a solid shot attempt by Gabrielle Mongno was stopped by Gettysburg goalie Bailey Pilder, and the loose ball was picked up by Colson, who proceeded to sprint the other way, all the way through the Gettysburg defense for an unassisted goal – her only score of the game.
“At first I was just thinking that I needed to get the ball out of the defensive end,” Colson said. “Bailey made a great save, and you need to capitalize on it. So then I was running up the field. … And when you see open space and an unsettled defense, I started to think, ‘There’s the goal and there’s a bunch of open space.”
Middlebury got out to a three-goal lead in its semifinal after Georgia Carroll got things rolling with back-to-back scores in the first five minutes of the game. That was followed by a Kirsten Murphy goal – all of this coming in a rain that did not lighten up until late in the first half.
“It was certainly a nice position to be in,” Panthers coach Kate Livesay said. “It can be a game of different momentums and different shifts. Having a lead has its share of challenges – you don’t want to see it slip away. But our program isn’t really focused on what was or what will be. We focus on what is now.”
That attitude paid off later in the game, as TCNJ (20-3) worked its way back into the game as its offense began to find better scoring opportunities and its defense adjusted to the way Middlebury played.
Goals by Olivia Cleale, Alex Fitzpatrick and Kasey Donoghue over a seven-minute span of the first half evened the score.
Middlebury did get a goal from Emma McDonagh shortly after TCNJ tied the score, but the Lions felt like they were in a much better position going into the second half than they had been midway through the first.
“Middlebury was strong in all parts of their game, but we had some really great moments as well,” TCNJ coach Sharon Pfluger said. “... I think that we fought the whole time and we made that nice comeback, but really needed to hit more shots.”
The one that just missed and possibly was the most costly for the Lions came early in the second half – an attempt by Elizabeth Morrison got past Middlebury goalie Kate Furber, but bounced away harmlessly after hitting the post.
Middlebury then went on to outscore TCNJ 7-2 over the next 21 minutes, grabbing control once and for all.