Nashua South girls lacrosse gets first win over Pinkerton since 2007 (video)

NASHUA - The Nashua High School South girls lacrosse team had a lot of time to think about Friday morning's game against Pinkerton.

After the Panthers dropped their first game of the season a week before at Dover, they were off all of spring vacation week, with nothing to do but practice.

Whatever time South put in paid off against the Astros, as the Panthers jumped out to a six-goal lead in the first half, never let Pinkerton get closer than four goals in the second half and pulled away for a 16-9 win at Stellos Stadium.

"Coming off the loss at Dover, they had all week to practice and prepare," South coach Ciki McIntire said. "I knew (Pinkerton) was going to be good and I knew they were going to have a ton of things to throw at us. They played composed and took care of the ball.

"I think most of our goals had assists. The defense locked it down when they need to and Keira (Walsh) came up with big saves in net. It was like they just played smart and then they celebrated like they won a championship."

And for good reason, as it was South's first win over Pinkerton in almost 16 years. The Panthers hadn't beaten the Astros since upsetting an undefeated Pinkerton in the Division I semifinals in 2007, on the way to the program's last championship.

Karina O'Donnell led the way for South (5-1, No. 8 in the NHHSSports Coaches Poll) with six goals and six draw controls, as the Panthers dominated the draw, winning 21 of 27. Ella Benzekri added four goals, three assists and six draw controls and Morgan Udzanovich had two goals and four assists.

Maren Lowell also scored twice and had an assist while Maddy Matylewski had a goal and an assist and Anna Pasquale also scored. Walsh finished with four saves behind solid defense from Brynn Tefft, Nevaeh Eppolitto, Maizie Barker, Maddie Berthiaume and Audrey Mullaney.

"Karina went off," McIntire said. "They proved (Friday) that they can play with anyone. They just need to believe in themselves and know that they can do it. If they’re going to shut off Ella, we have other people we can go to and she knows what to do if she gets face-guarded. It’s a good starting point."

Pinkerton (4-3, No. 6) got three goals from Hannah Lisauskas while Hailey Schnider had a goal and four assists. Lily Jeans also scored twice for the Astros while Bella Pinardi and Anna Perkins had a goal and an assist apiece.

Piper Knowlton chipped in with a goal and Natalie Paradzick had an assist while Sara DiClemente made 14 saves.

The loss snaps a three-game win streak for the Astros in which they averaged 17.3 goals per game and appeared to put a slow start to the season behind them.

"They fought hard to the end, they didn’t quit, but we also didn’t play our game," Pinkerton coach Katie Bourque said. "We had more turnovers than we typically had and it wasn’t our day. You never want to take a step back and I don’t think that they did. I think that (Friday) we just had a lot of errors that we don’t typically have. They’ve had a good week and I think they’re continuing to put it forward, I think that some days you have a good day and some days you don’t."

After falling behind 9-3 late in the first half, Pinkerton got a goal from Lisauskas in the final seconds to make it a five-goal game at halftime, and Jeans scored to open the second half, cutting the lead to four.

But South wouldn't let the Astros get any closer, as the Panthers answered every goal in the second half, taking a 12-7 lead with 15:26 left. Pinkerton took a timeout after the goal and was able to score out of it, but South answered with back-to-back goals just 28 seconds apart to take a 14-8 lead with 11:18 to play.

The Panthers might have stretched the lead earlier if not for a handful of saves by DiClemente, including two on free positions.

"Sara had a phenomenal game," Bourque said. "She made countless saves, she pretty much stood on her head. We’ve got to win the 50-50 balls. We made that first save, the groundball has to be ours. We do that, take care of business, we’re going the other way and good things happen."

Instead, after the Astros made it 14-9 with under eight minutes to play, the Panthers tacked on two more goals.

"Their goalie made some huge saves," McIntire said. "I kept looking at the clock thinking ‘oh no, it’s not moving.’ I knew they were going to pressure hard, we just had to handle that pressure. I was kind of waiting for (Pinkerton) to go on a run, but they just responded and shut them down. They didn’t get more than one goal at a time, and then we would counter, so as long as we can keep countering like that, I’ll take that."