Wakefield girls lacrosse eases by Heritage

The last time the Heritage and Wakefield girls lacrosse teams met, the Wolverines took an 18-1 non-conference victory over their Cap-8 Conference rivals.

Just 84 seconds into Friday afternoon’s league affair on the Huskies’ home field, Heritage sophomore attacker Caroline Savage served notice that this time may be different, scoring up high to give her team a 1-0 lead.

However, Savage injured her ankle on the play and did not return.

Less than a minute later, Wakefield tied the game and a minute after that sophomore Andee Abrams gave the Wolverines the lead for good as they rolled to a 19-5 victory.

Abrams had four goals and three assists in what head coach Denna Grasso called her “breakout game” as Wakefield played without leading scorer Julie Anne Pretty.

“I think without Julie Anne, we needed some other players to step up,” Grasso said. “And they needed to do so in different areas. And they did.”

Wakefield improved to 11-1 overall and 4-1 within the Cap-8 with its eighth straight win over Heritage. The Huskies fell to 7-5 and 3-1.

What worked

The Wolverines dominated the face offs.

“We controlled the draw,” Grasso said. “Win that stat, and you win the game.”

Wakefield owned a 19-7 advantage for the game.

Needs improvement

Heritage head coach Carissa Ficarro loved her teams mental approach to the game. She gave her team a homework assignment pregame to focus on the task at hand, and she thought the beginning was exactly what her team wanted.

After that, however, the team lost mental focus.

“Savage going down, that was a momentum buster,” Ficarro said. “But we have to overcome that. We’ll learn from it and get better.

“We went from losing 18-1 the first time to 19-5. Do I think we are 19-5 against Wakefield? No, definitely not. We can get it closer, and if we do what we were doing early on for the entire game, get a big stop here and there, I think we’d be much closer.”

Highlight reel

Heritage junior Jenna Thompson scored the niftiest goal of the game.

As the first half clock was winding down, Thompson took possession of the ball and ducked past two Wakefield defenders to find just an inch of space. She shot the ball hard, but it wasn’t accurate.

However, the ball slammed off a defender and into the back of the net with 1.1 seconds remaining.

They said it

“It gave them a good bit of confidence. So we had to find ourselves and step it up.” Abrams on the opening salvo by Heritage.

Three to know

Maggie Clark, Heritage: Freshman goalie had 15 saves as Wakefield’s offense constantly put her under duress with 37 shots.

Megan Blawas, Wakefield: Senior midfielder registered three goals and two assists in first half. Spent second half controlling possession. Also had nine face off wins.

Samantha Begin, Wakefield: Senior defender moved up to the midfield and scored three goals with three assists.

This story was originally published April 16, 2016 at 4:09 PM with the headline "Wakefield girls lacrosse eases by Heritage."