Portsmouth girls lacrosse got back to its game in 2nd half against Souhegan

AMHERST – When the Portsmouth High School girls lacrosse team took the field for the third quarter of Monday’s game against Souhegan, Maddy Houghton could feel a shift.

Something changed with the Clippers during halftime, and as the quarter carried on, the senior defender could see that feeling come to life in the way her and her teammates were playing.

“Going into that third quarter, we felt the shift,” Houghton said. “The energy definitely was higher, and when we feel that energy shift, we know we’re playing our game. It just felt like Portsmouth lacrosse and that’s exactly what we wanted.”

That meant communicating and tightening up on the defensive end and possessing the ball for long stretches when able to, to limit the Sabers’ chances, and that’s what the Clippers did throughout that quarter.

By the end of the third, Portsmouth had the ball so much, it started to find cracks in Souhegan’s defense and turned what had been a 5-4 game at halftime into a run that ended with the Clippers getting an 11-5 win in a rematch of last year’s Division I championship game.

Portsmouth also won that one in much the same way, breaking open a close game in the second half, and it’s the fifth straight time the Clippers have beaten the Sabers. In fact, Portsmouth’s last loss to Souhegan almost two years ago was the last time any team from New Hampshire has beaten it, a streak of 33 games.

That not only includes Monday’s game, but also a 16-8 win over Pinkerton last Friday that gave the Clippers two wins to open the season against teams that made the final four a year ago.

“I think it’s a great way to start the season,” Portsmouth coach JoJo Curro said. “Playing these stronger teams at the beginning, we now have the rest of the season to fix the things we need to fix, to make sure that what we are doing is representing Portsmouth lacrosse. I think we saw snippets of it throughout this game.”

For a quarter and a half, it looked like it might end up a shootout, as one of Raegan Lawton’s three goals made it 5-4 Portsmouth with 8:01left in the first half.

But the defenses for both teams stepped up to keep it scoreless until the break, and after that, a goal by Emery Lawton, Raegan’s twin sister, just 1:06 into the third, was the only score for either team for about 17 minutes.

“I think we did a really good job at staying disciplined no matter what,” Houghton said. “Even though we’re up, it’s always competitive and it always feels closer than it is. So just being composed, finding that one more (pass) and being disciplined really helped us.”

A couple of key defensive groundballs by Hailey Stallkamp helped Portsmouth close out the first half, and in the second, the combination of Ginger Vinciguerra and both Lawtons on the draw helped the Clippers keep the ball away from Souhegan.

But despite playing a lot of defense in the third quarter, the Sabers kept the Clippers at bay for a while, thanks to goalie Molly Benson (eight saves).

“I thought the defense and our goalie, Molly, did a great job,” Souhegan coach McKinley Sbordone said. “They committed to slowing Portsmouth down as much as we could, and we just didn’t answer as much as we needed to. We let down on the offensive end and made some mental errors and against a team like that, you give them an inch, they’re going to take it.”

While Monday was the teams’ only meeting of the regular season, chances are good it won’t be their last. The two have met in the playoffs in each of Portsmouth’s three seasons in Division I, with the Clippers winning all three times.