Londonderry girls lacrosse puts it all together, holds on to beat Souhegan

AMHERST - The Londonderry High School girls lacrosse team has known what it has in it.

After coming close to putting a complete game together at various times this season, the Lancers finally got the big win they needed Tuesday night.

Londonderry jumped out to a four-goal lead in the second half and did enough to withstand a furious comeback from Souhegan to beat the Sabers 8-7 in a Division I contest.

Emily Holland led the offense with five goals, including two in a two-minute stretch in the second half that gave the Lancers (7-3) the cushion they needed to win. Defensively, goalie Kaitlyn Marchant came up big with 11 saves, including one at the end of each half that kept the Sabers (9-2) from tying the game.

"It was Kaitlyn in goal, Sami Lecaroz on defense and Emily Holland in the midfield," Londonderry coach Scott Walden said. "They gave us that spark. Those three definitely stepped up.

"We've been saying, especially the last three or four games, if we want it, we can beat anybody in the state. You could see it (Tuesday), we wanted the groundball. Everybody wanted it and nobody let down. We've had leads on teams before and given up a couple of goals. This is the first time the team showed up all season."

Londonderry also got two goals from Erika Tsetsilas while Catie Derhak had a goal and Sarah Duarte added an assist.

The Lancers jumped out to a 4-1 lead in the first half before the Sabers came back to make it a one-goal game at halftime. Londonderry then held Souhegan scoreless until 7:38 remained in the game, as the Sabers were able to again cut the lead to one.

With under a minute to play, Souhegan's Brigid Casey had a chance to tie it on a free position shot, but Marchant came up with the save and Londonderry was able to run out the clock.

Casey finished with four goals to lead the Sabers, despite missing a portion of the second half after taking a stick to the head, while Emma Estabrook (assist), Sammi Jay and Savannah Behn also had a goal each. Abby Crannye and Taylor Clark added an assist apiece and Meaghan Allard made five saves.

"If anybody had to take the last shot, (Casey) is the one to take it," Souhegan Maren Petropulos said. "We seem to panic when we get behind and we were behind. We were never ahead and that kind of got us on our toes a little bit. We can take a lot away from this game. Londonderry played great."

The Lancers took a 1-0 lead on Holland's first goal 5:20 into the game, but Casey answered it with her first just 21 seconds later.

Tsetsilas gave Londonderry the lead for good with 18:02 left in the first half on her first goal, and she and Holland each scored less than a minute apart to make it 4-1 and force Souhegan to take a timeout with 9:55 left in the half.

"Our offense really stepped it up and that's something we'd been lacking," Holland said. "We had that one play from down low where we were able to get a couple of shots, and when they stopped that for a while, we were able to get the cutters when they started doubling."

But the Sabers came back before the end of the half, as Casey scored with 3:59 to go until halftime to make it 4-2. Behn cut the lead to one on her goal with 1:44 to play, but Holland answered 44 seconds later to put the Lancers up 5-3.

Souhegan won the draw and this time it was Estabrook who beat Marchant to cut the lead back to one, and after the Sabers controlled the draw again, Casey had two chances to tie it. Marchant stopped the Souhegan junior's first bid, and Casey got the rebound, but her second shot hit the post just before the half ended.

"She's huge," Holland said of Marchant. "She has been huge all year, but (Tuesday) she really stepped up. That was the best she's played all year."