By Ed Shepherd
CONTRIBUTING WRITER

Not sanctioned at the WIAA level as a season sport, but popular among high school kids, nonetheless, is lacrosse. Boys and girls teams are littering our area and are all over the state. They include Bellevue, Kent, Tacoma, Burien, Thomas Jefferson and Seattle, even Silverdale and over the mountains, in Wenatchee, too, in the 33-team club girls league. "Lacrosse is a lot of fun," said Kennedy Catholic coach Natalie Merrill, who is in her first year coaching the Lancers along with her assistant, Ashton Woodcock. But Merrill has auspicious roots for the sport.

"I started the high school lacrosse team at Kennedy when I was a sophomore in 2008," said Merrill, who graduated as a Lancer two years later. But she didn't graduate in 2010 until she led the entire WGLA (Washington Girls Lacrosse Association) in scoring and was the MVP. Now, having just gone to Washington State University for four years, playing college level lacrosse there, getting a B.A. in psychology, graduating in 2014, she is back from the Palouse, coaching the sport she loves and founded for the Lancers.

And, in a recent game, the team of Southwest, with players from West Seattle to White Center to Mount Rainier to Highline, including Aviation West in Sea Tac, played Kennedy Catholic and the Lancers handed the Lady Titans' team a loss, 18-5, at newly completed William F. Eisininger Field on the Lancers' school campus Thursday.

The game started off quickly in favor of the Lancers, who scored not one, but two goals in the first minute of action. Incidentally, a lacrosse game is two 25-minute halves with running clocks going the whole game. Timeouts, intermittently called during the game, can stop the clock and are two minutes in duration.

So, with 24:31 left in the first half, the Lancers' Ashley Cusack, a captain, scored and Kyra Terrana followed that stick-swinging success, looping in a shot 28 seconds later to make it 2-0. That came off a feed from Ryli McLaughlin with 24:03 left in half one.

The Lady Titans battled, then, with the Lancers for possession of the ball at the face off at center field, a third time in the game . To note, the face off happens at the start of every game, and after halftime, and also after every goal scored. And, the Lady Titans got the ball on face off this possession. And when they got the little, round, solid, rubber, yellow ball they put it into the goal, courtesy of a nice shot from Vanessa Dannels, so that chopped the Lancers lead in half, 2-1.

So this was looking like a good game developing, and even after the Lancers got another goal from McLaughlin with 19:14 left in the first half, it was still close. The Lancers led, 3-1.

Southwest coach Erica Maxwell called a timeout at this time hoping her team could get settled going against the Lancers, a team with a 2-5 record in league, coming in vs. the Lady Titans with its 3-5 mark in WGLA play.Maxwell talked and her players listened, and, some players, like Alexa Dannels, took time to demonstrate blocking and positioning for teammates to glean good tactics for future play.

But, after the timeout by the Lady Titans came an unfortunate stop in play when a player for their team experienced woozy feelings while playing this semi-rough sport with a lot of bumping and shoving and shimmying for position out on the field, going for the ball, and just moving around without it, too.

"I think, I have a concussion," said Tajinique Ruffin, a captain on the Lady Titans. So, she came out of the game and did not return.

So, that hurt the Lady Titans, as did the fact that no subs were on the sideline when Ruffin left in a dizzy state.

"We did well for our injuries, concussion and then someone else, almost, with a broken thumb was playing," said Hailey Johnston, who ran around well for the Lady Titans on the soccer-game-sized field that lacrosse is played on.

Speaking of field size, the big difference is the end lines stretch behind the goal 10 or so yards, with length and width dimensions otherwise identical to soccer fields. Also, to note, Johnston scooped up three ground (loose) balls off the turf in addition to being around the ball all game, a definite impact player for her team, though not scoring, or even getting an assist.

The Lancers took advantage of the Lady Titans being a player down, scoring again, quickly, as Terrana struck with 18:45 left in the first half unassisted. She looped completely around the goal and snuck a stick shot by the Lady Titans keeper to make it 4-1 Lancers.

"Watch those picks, defense," Maxwell could be heard saying around this time, a similar concept to a pick-and-roll in basketball. The Lancers were doing that strategy well, Maxwell saw.

But one less player meant a tough go to fight off picks, or other Lancers' offensive strategy/plays. And the Lancers scored again soon after, as a captain, Katie Feighner, scored with 17:07 left in the first half. That made it 5-1 Lancers. And, with 15:42, Hayden Hiner scored on the Lady Titans to up the lead to 6-1 before McLaughlin made it 7-1 with 15:25 left.

"This game we ran one of our plays called 'Dubs,'" said Mclaughlin.

One can, maybe, guess, what that play is, but, if not, McLaughlin was happy to explain.

"It makes the shape of a 'W,'" said McLaughlin.

"Players run in the shape of a 'W'", added her coach, Merrill.

It led to goals scored by the Lancers.

Three players scored on that 'W' play during the game, a play that the Lancers ran in practice and were happy to try out in a game. Those who scored goals off the 'W' play were Terrana, Cusack and McLaughlin.
"They had a girl get a concussion and they had no subs," said Merrill, adding, "It was a good game to run plays."

The scoring continued after that, but not for the Lancers immediately, anyway, as, the Lady Titans' Dannels sunk in her second goal, cutting the Lancers' lead to 7-2. Dannels' teammate, Katie Gatto, another Lady Titans team captain, put the yellow ball into the net, further chipping away, making it a 7-3 game with those two goals back-to-back coming with 10:16 and 9:53, respectively, left in the first half.

"We put our best effort forward," said Rebecca Swanstrom, a captain on the Lady Titans. "Kennedy is our sister rival school. It is fun to play them."

The fun continued, then, with the Lancers getting back to doing one of the many things they did well in this game -- scoring -- with Hiner striking off a Terrana assists. Then Ana Olson scored with 9:00 left first half. Then Mclaughlin scored with 8:36 left in the first half, changing the score to 10-3. Feighner was rustling the net, assist to Cusack, a few minutes later, with 3:03 left in the first half. That made it, 11-3, before McLaughlin notched the last goal, making it 12-3 before halftime, with the assist of the final goal credited to Ana Olson.

And, to note, that last goal got a "Beautiful, Ana," shouted from Merrill, as, for that 12th Lancers' score, Olson, on an out of bounds play, passed the ball inbounds. It was a nice 20-yard pass into the center of the field, about 20 yards from the goal. McLaughlin caught the ball in her stick pouch, perfectly running, in stride and firing it into the net.

"We do really well working together as a team, reading the field as a team," said McLaughlin.

As the second half commenced, Southwest lost the initial face-off, and, the Lancers with possession, were trying hard to find a way to do a " W" or, another play to get the ball in the net against the Lady Titans. However, after 2-3 minutes of trying, with possession of the ball, the Lancers did not score.

Shots were blocked by Taryn Gural a time or two, as well as hit down by the defense, avoiding picks well as their coach Maxwell mentioned, early in the game, they needed to watch.

So, that was nice defense by Vanessa and Alexa Dannels, Johnston, Gatto, Swanstrom and the rest of the Lady Titans to start the second half of play.

Southwest, then, got a shot off by Vanessa Dannels, with 20 minutes left, that was blocked by Lancers' goalie, Alesia Hernandez, who made a couple nice blocks of shots in this game, like Gural, and has done that kind of saving this season a lot of other times, too, according to Merrill.

"She is amazing in goal," said Merrill. "Fearless. Really coordinated. She's a senior, her last season. It will be sad to see her go after this season."

So, then, the Lancers' scored again and again and again, and the Lady Titans scored a couple more times, too, for the final numbers.

"Six different girls scored," said Merrill. "And, we had a lot of assists."

Terrana and McLaughlin led the scoring for the Lancers, with four each, with Cusack and Hiner and Feighner with three apiece, and Olson one. Cusack, Terrana, and, McLaughlin each made two assists, and Olson one. For the Lady Titans, Dannels scored four and Gatto, one.

Merrill, too, noted that Cusack ended things on a nice note for her team.

"Ashley Cusack made a nice one, a behind-the-back shot, top right corner, the last goal of the game," said Merrill.

The Lady Titans play Wenatchee at 7:30 p.m. at Moshier Field on April 27 for their next game before an away game against Curtis at 8 p.m. in University Place on April 30. The Lancers play Holy Names at Kennedy 5:30 p.m. at Kennedy on April 28 and then Nathan Hale comes to Kennedy for a 5:30 p.m. clash on April 30