Londonderry girls lacrosse gets first win over Pinkerton in four years (video)

DERRY - Kelly Gordon believed the Londonderry High School girls lacrosse team was capable of big things this season.

With the regular season coming to a close, the Lancers look like they are starting to believe, too.

Londonderry turned a one-goal lead at halftime Tuesday into a six-goal advantage in the second half and held on for a 14-10 win over Pinkerton Academy, the Lancers' first win over the Astros since the 2017 regular season.

"It’s so nice to see because that’s the team that (the coaches) see and that’s the talent that we see," Gordon said. "For them to come out with a win from it, because we’ve seen them play like this before, and it doesn’t always result in a win, it just feels really good."

Kiara Edmunds led the way for Londonderry (10-6) with four goals while Caroline Leone had two goals and an assist and Emily Cowette also scored twice. Grace Holland had a goal and an assist while Izzy Augusta, Lilah Melia, Abbie Whitley and Tara Wright also scored.

While the 14 goals tied the second-highest total allowed by the Astros (13-4) this year, the Lancers defense was also up to the task, as Pinkerton was held to 10 goals or less for just the third time. Riley Walter had eight saves for Londonderry while Katie McCudden and Tess Brown led the Lancers defense.

"We just tried to play clean, we tried to play our game," McCudden said. "We don’t try to do anything too crazy, we just try to stay calm and pressure out when we can. We make smart decisions."

Pinkerton got seven goals from Abby Jowett and Ali Lamphere added three goals. The Astros were playing shorthanded after Caroline Daziel went down with a knee injury in the first half.

"Londonderry played well," Pinkerton coach Rob Daziel said. "We had spurts and they played a whole game. They outhustled us. Sometimes there’s just an expectation that things are going to happen but that’s just not the way this game is. Hopefully the girls learned a lesson."

Jowett scored late in the first half to cut Londonderry's lead to 6-5, and after some confusion on a yellow card, the Astros were on the advantage for four minutes. The penalty carried over into the second half, but Pinkerton was unable to take score, and despite controlling possession for most of the first eight minutes of the half, the Astros couldn't get the tying goal.

Melia gave Londonderry a 7-5 lead 17:55 left to play, and after Pinkerton picked up a yellow card, Cowette scored to make it 8-5. The Astros answered about a minute later on a Jowett goal, but Londonderry won three straight draws and scored on each possession.

Overall, it was a 4-0 run for the Lancers that gave them a 12-6 lead with 7:42 remaining.

"We get a little bit frantic, or in the past we have, and this time, we really were patient and at the end of the day, we just wanted it," Gordon said. "You could see the ferociousness in the girls’ eyes of wanting it. There were things to clean up and we addressed those, and once we did, we really hit our stride."

Pinkerton responded by scoring three of the next four goals over a stretch of 3:35 to cut the lead to 13-9 and Londonderry took a timeout with 4:07 to play.

"Being smart and taking a second to relax," McCudden said of what was discussed during the break. "I think we were very hectic and very frantic at the moment. We took a second to regroup, talked about what we needed to do and did that."

Having had a couple of games where the lead started to slip away, Gordon wanted to make sure the Lancers were on the same page coming down the stretch.

"We’ve had that happen to us where we’ve let it slip," she said. "Patience and confidence. If we’re up, it’s our game to lose, so we need to be smart. We had a lot of that at this end (on offense), not trying to force anything, unless it was open.

"We called that timeout, they walked in and said we know exactly what we’re doing wrong and this is how we’re going to fix it."

Pinkerton won the ensuing draw, but Londonderry doubled Jowett when she got the ball and eventually forced a turnover.

"The last eight minutes of the game, we started playing well again," Rob Daziel said. "We had two kids who scored. Two kids aren’t going to be able to take on another team."

The teams will meet again at 5 p.m. on Thursday at Londonderry.