FREEPORT

Getting clean shots on cage is often the hard part when it comes to girls lacrosse. Long spells of possession and passing around the circle sometimes gets you nowhere. That’s why, if you do create those favorable chances, it can be very costly if you don’t finish them off.

Just ask the Freeport High School team.

The Falcons controlled much of the ball in Tuesday’s Western Maine Conference clash with Lake Region and created arguably better chances throughout. It was only a couple shots that flew wide or bounced off the goalies’ pads that made all the difference. Freeport got one step behind and was never able to catch up, leading to a 9-7 setback on Senior Day.

“The shots,” Freeport coach Marcia Wood said. “I think we probably out-shot them, but to not get any past, at this point in the season, you have to make those shots.”

Freeport (3-7) did in fact out-shoot Lake Region (5-4) 21-19 on the day, but never strung back-to-back goals together. Down 4-3 after the break, junior Taylor Dostie responded to an early Lakers goal by bouncing one in herself at 18:29. The Falcons won the ball right back on the draw and began a long spurt of possession in the opposing end.

Pass after pass, cut after cut, shot after shot, and nothing. Lake Region goalie Madelyn Nelson made four of her five second-half saves during the spell and watched a couple more fly just wide of her cage. All Freeport got out of it was another conceded goal at the other end at 10:20.

“We did a lot of great things holding possession of the ball if we took a shot, or if we dropped it we’d get it back,” Wood said. “But something’s got to give on attack. The shooting needs to be better, it needs to be more accurate, it needs to be with intensity, with a purpose. I think we were getting some looks inside, but not enough.”

“A lot of our shots, either they weren’t hitting the goal, or they were just throwing it right at the goalie,” Dostie said. “We need to work on aiming for a spot and really turning and facing the goal, then shooting where we want it.”

Freshman Catriona Gould answered with an unassisted run-in a minute-and-a-half later, but less than a minute after that, the Lakers found the back of the net again via Lauren Jakobs. The two sides exchanged scores all afternoon until finally, at 3:47 and 1:43, Lake Region scored back-to-back to ice the game.

A Taylor Rinaldi free-position score with 48.5 seconds to go wasn’t enough.

Need the ball

The Lakers scored right off the game’s opening draw control, only to watch Rinaldi finish a free-position chance on the other side 30 seconds later. Both squads added another to make it 2-2 after seven minutes and thus began a game-long battle for the ball.

“Possession is really important, especially when we were a man down at one point,” Dostie said. “We really need to get the draw and just hold it on offense. A lot of the time today, we were passing it around but we weren’t catching it. That definitely hurt us a little bit and they definitely could have capitalized on that too. We’re lucky at some points that we got it back.”

Freeport won five of eight draw controls in the first half, but when it mattered most in the second, Lake Region pulled even.

“The possession battle will, usually, win the games,” Wood said. “They got some hot scorers, so it’s a simple concept — if you have the ball, they don’t. If you have the ball, they can’t score.”

A few more possessions might have done wonders for the Falcons in the last eight minutes of the first frame, where the only score was a Mellisa Bonenfant free-position shot that gave Lake Region the 4-3 edge with 1:47 to go. The Lakers fired 10 shots in the first 25 minutes and forced four saves of Jordan Randall, who made eight on the day.

“Defensively, we did a nice job trying to hold down their two top scorers,” Wood said. “We were mindful of that. They just had a few draw-and-dunks that we didn’t react quick enough to, so that kind of threw things off. They stalled, and that’s exactly what you’re supposed to do. You’re supposed to stall, we have to go out and pressure, at some point you can probably burn by us.”

That’s exactly what happened on the Lakers’ final two goals of the game. An attacker was left alone, then darted right by the pressure to move in on goal. It’s the type of thing Wood feels like her team should have down by now. With little time left in the regular season, the time to clean it up is right away.

“Towards the end of the season, you should be peaking, and I’m not quite sure we’re there,” Wood said. “We need to focus on our attacking and our shooting. We need the next two games. We need to play a full game and I’ve only seen them do that once this year against Yarmouth.”

“We’re off and on every game,” Dostie said. “We just need to pull it together and be a team and play our hardest. We have to really want it. As long as we really, really want it the same, I think we can beat teams that we wouldn’t normally beat.”

Freeport will visit North Yarmouth Academy on Thursday at 4 p.m.

Lake Region 9, Freeport 7

At Hunter Road Fields in Freeport

Lakers	—	4	5	—	9
Freeport	—	3	4	—	7

Goals — (LR) Mellisa Bonenfant 2, Lindsey Keenan 2, Rachel Shanks, Lauren Jakobs 2, Paige Davis, Ashley Sturk; (F) Taylor Rinaldi 2, Chloe Davidson 2, Taylor Dostie 2, Catriona Gould. Assists — (LR) Lauren Jakobs, Rachel Shanks 2, Georgia Shanks, Lindsey Keenan; (F) Margaret Perrotta, Regan Lynch. Shots — Freeport 21, Lakers 19. Saves — (LR) Madelyn Nelson 7; (F) Jordan Randall 8. Draw controls — Freeport 10, Lakers 8. Records — Lakers 5-4, Freeport 3-7. Up next for the Falcons — Thursday at North Yarmouth Academy, 4 p.m.