Leesville Road girls lacrosse downs Wake Forest

The Leesville Road girls lacrosse team earned its first Cap-8 Conference win Wednesday night with a 7-4 victory that spoiled Wake Forest’s senior day.

The two teams went into halftime knotted up at four goals apiece, and the goalkeepers – Maria Schelfe for Leesville (2-7, 1-4) and Millenia Crespo for Wake Forest – were the stars up to that point.

“Our defense was wonderful, and they were communicating better than they have the past couple of weeks,” said Leesville coach Karah Fegeley.

In the second period, the Pride scored a couple goals and started to run down the clock. Wake Forest (3-7, 2-4) struggled to gain possession, but even when it did, scoring was another issue. Schelfe continued her stellar play and stonewalled countless Cougar attacks for the second half shutout.

“We have wanted this win so bad, so I think everything went together perfectly,” Schelfe said. “We were communicating well. I was seeing the ball.”

Leesville has struggled to score in recent games, totaling just 14 goals in its last four matches. Prior to spring break, it had a week of rest, and Fegeley said she used that time to get back to fundamentals with her players.

“(We) got back to throwing, passing, catching, ground balls, and it makes a big difference,” Fegeley said.

Great defense can only get a team so far, as it’ll need goals as well. The Pride fared better than they have in recent weeks as Izzee Akers led Leesville with a hat trick, and Abby Shearer, Chandler Boneham, Tori Ellsworth and Emma Caulfield each added a goal.

“We worked a lot, this week especially, on slowing it down,” Fegeley said. “Getting the ball down there, passing it around and making sure everybody’s in their spots and then starting to do the cutting.”

This story was originally published April 20, 2017 at 2:44 PM with the headline "Leesville Road girls lacrosse downs Wake Forest."