CUMBERLAND — Greely maintained its poise and possession of the ball long enough for a 7-5 win against Waynflete in a Western Maine Conference girls’ lacrosse game Wednesday at Hutchins Field.

The Rangers followed their game plan nearly to the letter while handing the Flyers their first loss of the season.

Both teams are 3-1.

“The idea was to stay composed, wear down the defense and attack, and our girls executed it perfectly,” Greely Coach Becca Koelker said. “We talked about possession (being) key in a game like this. We knew it was going to be a challenging game so keeping possession of the ball was the best defense. We took care of the ball.”

The Rangers committed just seven turnovers during the 50-minute game. They also won 8 of 13 center draws.

“Courtney Sullivan did a great job on the draws of getting that initial possession and our attack did a great job keeping the ball down there,” Koelker said.

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Greely also held a 14-6 edge in shots on goal and goalkeeper Hannah Perfetti made two important saves.

“She had some huge saves that kind of shifted the momentum back our way,” Koelker said. “She’s a freshman and she’s doing an awesome job for us.”

Greely led 3-2 at halftime.

After maintaining possession of the ball for much of the first 10 minutes of the game, the Rangers opened the scoring when Elsie Dean-Munsie converted a nifty pass from Brooke Clement for a goal 12 minutes in.

Less than 30 seconds later Laura Baginski turned a feed from LZ Olney into the tying goal.

Greely regained the lead when Courtney Sullivan scored on a free-position shot from 5 yards during the 13th minute and Jayme Morrison scored on a fast-break setup four minutes later on a pass from Sullivan following a Waynflete turnover.

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With less than two minutes left in the first half, Ya Stockford put in a left-handed shot from 5 yards for the first of her three goals to cut Greely’s lead to one.

After winning the first three draws of the second half, the Rangers got two goals from Clement and a goal from Morrison during the first 101/2 minutes to pull away into a 6-2 lead.

The one time Greely lost its cool, the Flyers took advantage. They rallied for two goals as Greely played one player down as Abby Taylor spent two minutes in the penalty box for slashing. Stockford scored two goals 24 seconds apart to make it 6-4 with less than seven minutes to play.

The Rangers regained their three-goal edge about two minutes later when Clement converted a feed from Ellie Holt into her third goal.

Olney completed the scoring with just over a minute left.

“(Greely) played a great game and we struggled,” said Waynflete Coach Cathie Connors. “We had a tough day. We were having trouble catching the ball. We weren’t getting to the ground balls. If you lose ground balls, very rarely can you win the game.

“It wasn’t our day at all today, and Greely played fantastic.”


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