Bishop Guertin girls lacrosse comes back late, beats Pinkerton in OT (video)

NASHUA - Leslie Why knew this was going to be a challenging week for the Bishop Guertin High School girls lacrosse team.

With games against two in-state rivals and two more against tough out-of-state opponents, the Cardinals had their work cut out for them.

Facing a Pinkerton Academy team Thursday night that's been playing a different defense than Bishop Guertin has been used to seeing, that turned out to be the case, as the Cardinals had to battle back to tie the game with 1.1 seconds left in regulation before pulling out a 10-9 win over the Astros in overtime at Stellos Stadium.

Steph Reap scored on a free position with almost no time left on the clock to force the extra time and Katie Campel netted the game-winner with 1:28 left to keep Bishop Guertin (13-1-1, No. 1 in the NHHSSports Coaches Poll) from dropping its second game in a row.

Campel had two goals for the Cardinals while Rylee Bouvier had three goals and an assist and Tess Prunier had two goals and an assist. Nat Coutu and Lauren Redfern had a goal and an assist each.

"This was critical that we won," Why said. "If we hadn’t, I think it would have been tough to take two in a row. It’s a great emotional victory for us. We needed a check in that box. Hopefully, the energy has been brought back and refocused."

After picking up wins over Bedford and Franklin (Mass.) last Thursday and Saturday, respectively, the Cardinals lost their first game of the season at Newburyport (Mass.) on Tuesday.

Against Pinkerton (12-3, No. 5), Bishop Guertin quickly found itself down 3-0 and had to battle back to tie the game 5-5 at halftime. Two yellow cards on the Astros near the end of the first half gave the Cardinals an opening to take a 7-5 lead just minutes into the second half, and the lead stretched to three goals before Pinkerton was able to claw back into it.

The Astros got three goals each from Allison Lamphere and Hailey Schnider while Caitlin Seleny had a goal and two assists, with her score giving Pinkerton a 9-8 lead with 5:35 to play. Hannah Lisauskas added a goal and an assist and Tina Packowski also scored.

"We stuck to our game plan," Pinkerton coach Katie Blair said. "We came out and executed it. It was probably as good of a game as you can ask for. We try to tell them, you need to be better than you were yesterday, and if you progressively get better each day, at the end of the season, we’ll be where we want to be. We keep pushing them in practice. I’m proud of the growth that we’ve had to get to where we are now."

Part of that game plan was a zone defense that Blair started to install for the Astros at the beginning of the season, and it kept the Cardinals six goals below their season average.

"We don’t run a zone at all, so us practicing against our faux zone is not very effective," Why said. "The things we practiced were not actually the things we did out there."

When Bishop Guertin was able to get looks against Pinkerton's defense, goalie Lauren Sweeney was coming up with big plays in goal to keep the Cardinals off the board. The Astros also held a 6-2 edge on draws in the second half, using the possession advantage to get back into the game.

Lamphere and Packowski scored 56 seconds apart to cut the Cardinals' lead to 8-7 with 14:01 remaining, and Lamphere scored again with 11:18 to go to tie it. After the teams went back and forth a few times, Seleny scored on a free position to give the Astros the lead.

Pinkerton got possession again and tried to run out the clock, killing off close to four minutes, despite getting a couple of open looks at the goal.

"Our game plan was if we get up, we’re going to hold it," Blair said. "We weren’t going to try to go score because they are well-coached and a very talented team. If we had scored, and there was too much time left, they could have come down and scored multiple times. I trust my defense, but if we have possession, it’s the key to the game. They can’t score if we have it."

It came close to working, but the Cardinals were able to deflect a pass and get the groundball. Reap ended up with it and was awarded a free position with 6.6 seconds left.

Sweeney stopped the initial shot, but the ball shot straight up, and as the Pinkerton goalie looked for it, it came down and hit her, deflecting into the net with 1.1 remaining to tie the game.

After each team had a couple of chances in overtime, Campel sent everyone home with her second goal of the night.

"I’m glad that she was able to convert," Why said. "We’ve been running this really in-tight offense, she hasn’t had a lot of opportunities in there. She’s a tall girl and she needs room to move. She did a great job for us up and down the field. Getting that shot off, I hope that’s a big confidence boost for her."