Pinkerton girls lacrosse overcomes slow start to beat Portsmouth (video)

DERRY - The Pinkerton Academy girls lacrosse team went into this season with an offensive unit that had a lot of experience playing together.

While many teams have tried to mesh on the fly, the Astros' familiarity with each other on that end of the field has been evident.

After putting up 38 goals in their first two games, Pinkerton used a 6-0 run in the middle of Saturday's game against Portsmouth to grab a large enough lead and held on for a 14-10 win.

Overall, the Astros (3-0) outscored the Clippers 11-2 over a 30-plus minute stretch that turned a 4-1 deficit into a 12-6 lead with under 12 minutes remaining.

"This attack group has been playing for a while," Pinkerton coach Rob Daziel said. "They play indoor together, they play club together. They’re pretty tight and know each other well. They’re seniors. That’s one of our strengths.

"We have a lot of scorers and a lot of assisted goals. That many offensive people with confidence to take a shot is really great."

Caroline Daziel led Pinkerton with four goals and five assists while Amy Quigley had five goals. Allison Lamphere and Caitlyn Seleny each added two goals and Abby Jowett also scored while Lauren Sweeney made seven saves.

Portsmouth (2-1) got five goals from Charlotte Marston while Mia Smith had three goals and Annie Parker and Sally Collins had one goal apiece. Arden Griffin made three saves.

"The last few minutes of the game was kind of how I want our game to look like," Portsmouth coach JoJo Curro said. "I think there were definitely some pockets of greatness. I think we got a little tired in some areas, that our communication wasn’t there, but it shows what we need to work on."

The Clippers jumped out to the early by getting possession and taking advantage of an Astros defense that is still trying to come together. But after Parker scored to make it 4-1 with 17:40 left in the first half, Jowett took control on the draw.

The senior won the next two, helping set up two goals by Quigley just 25 seconds apart to cut Portsmouth's lead to 4-3 with 16:51 remaining in the half.

That started a run of 16 straight draw controls by Jowett, which helped Pinkerton go up 6-4. After the Clippers tied it, the Astros ended the half on a 3-0 run to lead 9-6 at the break.

"We were strong on the draw which helped because early on defensively, we had some trouble," Rob Daziel said. "We got better defensively and I think that was the difference. We showed we could score, but they were scoring pretty easily on our defense."

Seleny scored just 39 seconds into the second half, when Griffin stopped her initial shot, but the ball bounced out of her stick and right back to Seleny, who scored off the rebound. Quigley added two more goals after that to make it 12-6 with 11:48 to play.

The Clippers took a timeout and moved Marston into the circle and finally ended Jowett's run on the draw.

"She doesn’t normally take it and she stepped up to that," Curro said. "I think it made a huge difference. If we had made that decision a little earlier, it might have been a different game."

Portsmouth was able to get Pinkerton's lead down to four on a goal by Smith with 5:16 to play, but the Astros answered with goals from Lamphere and Caroline Daziel. The Clippers got the lead back down to four on a goal by Marston with 29.9 seconds left.

"We didn’t play a complete game," Rob Daziel said. "Portsmouth is a good team. This was our toughest competition in the early season. We probably played half the game, maybe a little more than half, the way we should be playing. It’s early in the season."