Girls lacrosse: Hunterdon Central remains undefeated
FLEMINGTON - After losing 12 seniors last season, the Hunterdon Central High School girls lacrosse team questioned just how good they would be this season. Turns out, the Red Devils are pretty darn good.
Hunterdon Central remained undefeated at 11-0 behind a career-high eight goals from sophomore attack Lauren Shaw as the Red Devils beat Bernards, 17-14, on Saturday afternoon.
"Our older girls really help us out," Shaw said. "We are a young team, but our older girls really step up and really help the younger girls to gain momentum in the game and show us that we should be on the varsity field."
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The Red Devils and rival Bridgewater-Raritan are the lone teams in the Skyland Conference that remain undefeated, and the two teams are tied at the top of the Delaware Division at 3-0. The Panthers will travel to Hunterdon Central on Thursday for a battle of the unbeatens.
Senior midfielder Courtney Patterson leads the team in goals with 52, while Shaw has 37 goals and 14 assists so far this season. Junior midfielder Catie Perkins is close to beating the 25 goals she scored last year, as she has 22 goals and 33 assists. Sophomore midfielder Brittany Bill (26 goals, four assists) and junior attack Maggie Bixby (13 goals, 14 assists), are also big parts of the Red Devils offense.
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Junior Jenna Van Holten and freshman Bella Steer have split time in net and have combined to allow 99 goals.
"I think we had a lot of great team effort, there's not just one of us, it's all of us," Shaw said. "That's the difference, that's what splits us from the other teams, we have 12 girls on the field, not just one girl doing all the work and I think that's what makes us different from everyone else and I think that's what helps us win. We step up, if one girl makes a mistake, we bring her up, if that girl makes a mistake she brings herself up, we have a lot of confidence in our team."
On Saturday, Bernards (8-2) took a quick 3-1 lead in the first five minutes on a hat trick from Paige Petty, but Hunterdon Central outscored the Mountaineers 11-5 to take a 12-8 lead at halftime.
The Mountaineers started to climb back into the game in the second half. Down 14-9 with 17:50 left, Bernards scored three-straight goals in a two-minute span to cut the lead to two, 14-12. Petty scored her fifth and sixth goals of the day, while Elise Cohan scored her fourth.
Hunterdon Central called a timeout and when the Red Devils returned to the field, they answered back with three-straight goals of their own to stretch their lead to 17-12 with 4:42 to play. Cohan connected with Tegan Warren for her fifth goal of the afternoon to cut the lead to 17-13 with 3:04 left, and Warren capped the scoring for the Mountaineers with a goal with 1:57 remaining for the 17-14 final.
"Teams are going to score goals, I'm proud of the way our defense changed the way they played as the game went on," Bernards coach Jessica McGinn said. "The first set of goals that Hunterdon Central scored were so easy, and our girls really slowed them down and made them look, keep moving the ball to get those looks and that's all you can ask for out of your defense is to make them work for it. If you take two or three minutes off the clock and they score a goal, they've still done their job."
The victory meant more for Hunterdon Central than just another number in the win column, as the Red Devils held their Cancer Awareness game to raise funds for guidance counselor Jaclyn Coppola.
"We knew it was going to be one of the hardest games we've played so far this season, but today we were fighting for something much more than just a game or just our team, it was our awareness game for cancer so we just put it all out there," Patterson said.
Staff Writer Lauren Knego: lknego@gannettnj.com; on Twitter: @laurenknego
Hunterdon Central 17, Bernards 14
GOALS: (HC) Shaw 8, B. Bill 3, Patterson 2, Perkins 2, Bixby, Winiarski; (B) Petty 6, Cohan 5, Warren, McHale, Gillis; ASSISTS: (HC) Perkins 4, Bixby 2, Patterson, Winiarski; (B) Warren 4, Petty 3, Gillis; SAVES: (HC) Van Holten 6; (B) Grimm 3, Cassella 1.