Girls Lacrosse: Hillsborough advances in North Group IV

HILLSBOROUGH - The Hillsborough High School girls lacrosse team had to dig deep, but the Raiders managed to rally in the second half to advance to the NJSIAA North Group IV Tournament semifinals on Monday.

Fourth-seeded Hillsborough outscored No. 5 North Brunswick 7-3 in the second half en route to a 15-10 final in the quarterfinals and will face top-seeded Ridgewood in the next round.

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"We knew they were going to come out hard obviously, it's a state game and everyone's fighting to stay in, you lose and you're out," Hillsborough's Gianna Napoletano said. "So we knew they were going to come out hard and we knew we had to play our game and come out hard as well."

Hillsborough (14-4), which has won nine of its last 10 games, took a 5-1 lead in the first four minutes of the game, but were outscored by North Brunswick 6-3 as the Raiders tied the game 7-7 on a free position goal by Tori Tucci with 8:02 left in the half.

Sam Boyer scored with 32 seconds left as Hillsborough took a slim 8-7 lead into halftime.

"We knew that their defense was going to be high pressure so we knew we just had to keep our composure throughout the game and just do the best we can," Hillsborough's Danielle Fanizzi said. "Definitely ball movement and the cuts to the middle definitely were helping."

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Tatum Altman scored her third goal of the game just 25 seconds into the second half to tie the game 8-8, and Tucci scored on an assist from Altman four minutes later to give North Brunswick a 9-8 advantage.

Hillsborough then regained momentum, scoring six unanswered goals to take a 15-9 lead with 3:25 remaining. Samantha Mehalick scored on an assist from Altman with 1:33 to play for the 15-10 final.

"It was tough, you just have to think about the whole team and we're all fighting for this together," Napoletano said of Hillsborough's mindset during its comeback. "One player makes a good play then it leads to another player making a good play and so on."

"We just kept fighting," Fanizzi added. "As seniors they expect leadership out of us so we kind of just try to bring and try to bring the rest of the team with us."

Napoletano and Olivia Johnsen each scored four goals to lead Hillsborough. Fanizzi added a hat trick and three assists and Lisa Ross finished with four assists.

Mehalick led North Brunswick with four goals and finished with 425 career goals. Altman had a hat trick and two assists. Tucci added a hat trick.

Hillsborough will travel to Ridgewood in the semifinals. Ridgewood (16-2) defeated No. 8 Montclair 22-4 on Monday, and has outscored opponents 47-6 in its two games.

"We're excited, we''ll see what happens in the next game," Fanizzi said.

Hillsborough 15, North Brunswick 10

GOALS: (H) Napoletano 4, Johnsen 4, Fanizzi 3, Boyer, Ross, Vangeli, Terreri; (NB) Mehalick 4, Altman 3, Tucci 3; ASSISTS: (H) Ross 4, Fanizzi 3, Boyer 3, Johnsen 2; (NB) Altman 2, Mehalick; SAVES: (H) McCormick 1; (NB) Chapman 8.