Londonderry girls lacrosse holds off Nashua South for win (video)

LONDONDERRY - The list of things the Londonderry High School girls lacrosse team is trying to improve has a good number of items on it.

Keeping consistent, particularly when it comes to intensity, might be at the top of that list. Not far behind is capitalizing on opportunities.

The Lancers did a good job of both Thursday against Nashua South, coming away with a 13-10 victory that required a consistent effort and being able to cash in on some chances on offense.

Londonderry (7-3) went on a 7-0 run in the first half to swing momentum in its direction and then held off a late charge by the Panthers (5-3) by putting in a few goals of its own.

"I think the girls worked really hard," Londonderry coach Kelly Gordon said. "What we’re working hard on right now is consistency. How do you maintain that intensity throughout the entire game? We’re seeing good spurts of it. South gave us some tough competition, which always makes for a more exciting game and shows us where we’re at and what we need to work on. I’m happy with the girls’ play."

Emily Cowette (assist), Jenna Stowell and Kiara Edmunds each had three goals for the Lancers, with Cowette's coming at key junctures of the second half to keep Londonderry in front.

The first goal came when Cowette pressured South goalie Audrey Mullaney on a clear, forcing a turnover and then scoring before the Panthers freshman could get back in the net. The second came moments after South had cut the Londonderry lead to just one with a little more than 10 minutes to play.

And on the third, Cowette worked to get open down low and scored off a feed from Abbie Whitley that put the game out of reach.

"They’re huge," Gordon said. "They are everything. I tell the girls it only takes one second to score. You may be up, but that can change like that. We saw that happen on Tuesday. Every opportunity to score, we need to capitalize on. We’re probably not going to get as many opportunities, so we need to capitalize on each and every one."

Tara Wright added a goal and an assist for Londonderry while Caroline Leone and Whitley had a goal and an assist each and Izzy Augusta also scored. Kathryn Martin finished with seven saves.

South got six goals from Olivia Johnson, but Londonderry's defense was able to keep the rest of the Panthers' offense mostly in check. Ella Benzekri added two goals while Kylie Dawe and Soleil Dubois each had a goal. Kaitlyn West had two assists and Mullaney finished with 14 saves.

"We played tough at times," South coach Ciki McIntire said. "We’d go on runs and then Londonderry was outworking us on groundballs. We talked about that determining the game and they won that piece of it.

"They kept fighting, but we have improvement to do. It’s good to be in tight situations like this because that’s how they’re going to get better. I’ll take a game like that any day because we get so much more out of it."

The Panthers had a 3-1 lead in the first half, going up on back-to-back goals by Benzekri and Dawe just 1:03 apart. The Lancers took a timeout with 15:39 left until halftime and quickly swung momentum.

Augusta and Leone scored 35 seconds apart to tie the game and Edmunds and Stowell added two more goals 37 seconds apart, as Londonderry scored four goals in 1:42 to go up 5-3. After West drew a yellow card, Stowell and Edmunds scored again while the Lancers had the advantage, forcing the Panthers to take a timeout with 8:42 remaining in the half.

South was able to cut the lead down to three before halftime, with Dubois making it 8-5 with 55 seconds to go, and Johnson scored early in the second half to get the Panthers within two. Londonderry stretched the lead back to four, but South went on a 3-0 run, getting within one, 10-9, on a goal by Johnson with 10:40 to play.

"That’s why I called the timeout," Gordon said. "The message was we are shooting it right at her stick. We need to be smart about it especially when it was down (to one goal). It was our game to lose at that point. We had to figure out ways to be smart with it, and we did close to the end."

Cowette scored with 8:30 remaining to give Londonderry some breathing room and Martin made a couple of stops at the other end to keep South from getting any closer.