Pinkerton girls lacrosse makes first-half lead stand in playoff win over Londonderry (video)

DERRY - The Pinkerton Academy girls lacrosse team piled up goals in the first half of Wednesday's Division I quarterfinal against Londonderry.

So when the Lancers made their run in the second half, the Astros still led by a comfortable margin.

Pinkerton took an eight-goal lead into halftime, and when Londonderry cut it in half after the break, the Astros had enough to hold the Lancers off, taking a 15-11 win to advance to the semifinals.

It's the eighth time since 2013 that the Astros have advanced to the final four, where they will host Exeter, which defeated Dover in the quarterfinals, on Saturday at a time to be determined.

"I’m proud of the girls to be making it to the semifinals with a team that is really rebuilding," Pinkerton coach Rob Daziel said. "Londonderry is a tough team. They’ve stayed in games with people. In the first half, we beat them. In the second half, they played us even or even better than that. They’re a good team."

Pinkerton (15-4) got out to a 5-1 lead early and went on a 5-0 run to end the first half with an 11-3 lead. The Astros stretched that to 12-3 early in the second half before Londonderry (11-8) started to come back.

Abby Jowett led Pinkerton with five goals and five assists, including a goal with 6:19 left in the game to put her team up 15-10 after the Lancers had cut the lead to four. Amy Quigley also had five goals for the Astros and Ali Lamphere had four goals.

"We put (Jowett) in a position where she can score and feed, and she did both well," Daziel said. "She’s a very smart kid and she plays smart. They’re both girls (Quigley and Lamphere) who can finish. Ali is a work horse. She’s a midfielder and for her to go back and play defense, and then run the length of the field and have the offensive output that she does is really good."

Justine Doyle also had a goal and Caitlyn Seleny had three assists while Lauren Sweeney made five saves and came up with a couple of key defensive plays to keep Londonderry from getting closer.

Londonderry's Jenna Stowell scored all five of her goals in the second half, including three straight in 30 seconds that helped cut Pinkerton's lead to 12-6. Caroline Leone added two goals and an assist while Izzy Augusta, Kiara Edmunds, Tara Wright and Grace Holland each had a goal. Kathryn Martin came on in relief in goal and made five saves.

"We were in our heads I think in the first half, just the pressure of it being a playoff game," Londonderry coach Kelly Gordon said. "We just looked at each other and I said I don’t care what the score is at the end of the day, but I want to leave knowing you left it all on the field. They did just that. They gave 110 percent and it showed, just unfortunately it was a little too late."

Pinkerton jumped out to a 3-0 lead less than four minutes in and stretched the led to 5-1 before Londonderry took a timeout with 18:40 left in the first half. The Lancers got back within three, making it 6-3, and they had a chance for more, but a shot hit the crossbar and Pinkerton regained possession and went the other way.

Doyle scored with 12:20 remaining in the half to make it 7-3 and Lamphere added three goals before the end of the half, the last of which made it 11-3 with 1:25 to go until the break.

"You certainly want to be patient on offense so it’s not up and down," Daziel said. "That was a lot of goals in the first half, so the game feels slow at that point. We try to be patient on offense and take our best opportunity."

Quigley scored 4:32 into the second half to give Pinkerton a 12-3 lead, but Londonderry won the ensuing draw and Stowell started her run. The senior scored three straight times, to get the lead down to six goals, but Lamphere and Jowett answered for Pinkerton for a 14-6 lead.

But the Lancers came right back, with Stowell scoring the first and last goal in a 4-0 run for Londonderry that cut the lead to 14-10 with 7:23 remaining.

"What a half," Gordon said. "You saw the fire at halftime, saw it get lit in her eye. We were done for and that’s what we needed. She’s such an asset for this team."

Pinkerton won the ensuing draw and Jowett scored just 1:04 later, and after the Astros got the draw again, they were able to kill enough time to hang on for the win.

Saturday's meeting will be the third for Pinkerton and Exeter this year, with the Astros winning 20-10 and 12-8 two weeks ago.

"They’re a good team," Daziel said. "They always play us tough. They’ve got some good players up top. They remind me a lot of Londonderry. It’s going to be a good game and we’re going to have to work to win."