SPORTS

Bridgewater-Raritan girls drop sectional final

Daniel LoGiudice
@danny_logiudice

RIDGEWOOD - Trailing by five goals midway through the second half, the Bridgewater-Raritan High School girls lacrosse team mounted an impressive comeback, but its sectional title dreams came to an end on Wednesday afternoon.

After losing last season’s sectional final 14-7 to Ridgewood, the second-seeded Panthers fell again to top-seeded Ridgewood by a score of 10-8 in the North Group IV final. It was their first loss of the season.

The Panthers finished the season as Somerset County Tournament champions and with a 21-1 record.

“I knew coming into this game that we could play with Ridgewood. They’re a great team, but so are we,” Bridgewater-Raritan coach Alyssa Frazier said. “I didn’t feel we were coming into this game as underdogs. We are very evenly matched, but today they played the better game than us and came out on top.”

Ally Mastroianni led the Panthers with three goals while Hannah Hollingsworth dished three assists.

With the score tied at 5 at the half, Ridgewood jumped out to a 10-5 lead within the first 10 minutes of the second half thanks to five consecutive goals.

Hollingsworth then assisted on goals by Addison Reilly and Julia Lytle, and then Ally Stanton scored off a penalty with 8:31 left in the game to cut the deficit to 10-8. However, Ridgewood would maintain possession for the majority of the remaining time and iced the game.

“We dug ourselves into a hole, and our goal was to make one play at a time, score one goal at a time,” Frazier said. “We had a good run there at the end, but we ran out of time and couldn’t quite catch up.”

Despite the disappointing ending for the second consecutive season, the Panthers were once again the best girls lacrosse team in Somerset County.

“I’m so proud of this team. They came every day to practice and showed up to every game ready to work and ready to win, and up until this point, that’s what they did,” Frazier said. “As great as that is, we expected more because we knew we had the potential to go all the way.”

The Panthers will have the bulk of their roster back next season. With juniors Mastroianni (85 goals, 62 assists), Hollingsworth (37 goals, 66 assists), Reilly (39 goals, 22 assists), Stanton (35 goals, 43 assists), Lytle (22 goals, 18 assists), Kirsten Murphy (53 goals, 28 assists) and Arielle Weissman (119 saves) and freshman Tai Jankowski (37 goals, 18 assists), the Panthers will be dangerous once again in 2017.

“We have most of our lineup coming back next year, and I told them that next season starts tomorrow; we have to get better, faster, stronger and come back ready to win a state championship,” Frazier said. “I had 100 percent confidence in my program this year, but I’m looking forward to next year. I’m excited about this team. I know that we’re going have a better team next year with a lot of leadership, and I’ll have 100 percent confidence next season.”

Bernards 11, Mahwah 3

Paige Petty tallied four goals and two assists and Laurel McHale added three goals and an assist to lead the top-seeded Bernards High School girls lacrosse team to an 11-3 victory over second-seeded Mahwah in the final of the NJSIAA North Group II Tournament.

It’s the first sectional title in program history for Bernards.

Tegan Warren chipped in two goals and four assists for the Mountaineers, who will face South Jersey champ Rumson-Fair Haven at 2 p.m. Saturday at Kean University.

Elise Cohen and Ann Gillis added goals for Bernards, which exploded for eight second-half goals after leading 3-1 at halftime.

Charlotte Grimm made eight saves in the victory.

Staff Writer Daniel LoGiudice: dlogiudice@gannettnj.com. Twitter: @danny_logiudice.