SPSG lax is undone by Darien’s final surge

In Saturday’s showdown between two of the top girls lacrosse teams in the country, No. 2 St. Paul’s School for Girls stuck with Connecticut power Darien through 10 ties and more than two hours of lightning delay, but they could not hold off the last blue wave.

With about nine minutes left, Darien scored three goals in less than four minutes and held off a Gators rally in the final seconds to take a 13-12 victory at Tierney Field at USA Lacrosse Headquarters in Sparks.

The Gators, ranked third behind No. 1 Darien and No. 2 McDonogh in the Nike/USA Lacrosse National Girls Top 25, had two chances to tie in the final 28 seconds. First, Caroline Hoskins’ fired wide, but Karina Herrera backed it up. With eight seconds left, Darien goalie Hope Schoudel snared a high shot from Lauren Steer charging down the middle.

“We were trying to sort of clear and get dives and dodges and I just think they picked up on that,” Steer said. “and it didn’t work out in the end, but I think the team as a whole, we fought and we’ll come back from this.”

St. Paul’s coach Mary Gagnon said her two-time defending IAAM A Conference champs played one of their best games this season against Darien, which has won seven Connecticut state large schools championships since 2003. Last spring, they fell in the title game by a goal.

“We’ve played well but we really haven’t played consistently well on both ends of the field yet,” said Gagnon, whose team’s only other loss was by a goal to No. 1 McDonogh.

“It’s all about peaking at the right time and we played well enough to win today, I really feel like… We shared the ball well. I thought offensively we played well. (Darien’s) Chloe Humphrey is definitely the No. 1 player in the country.”

Humphrey, a senior midfielder rated the top senior by Inside Lacrosse, got the Blue Wave (6-0) off to a quick start with two goals in the first two minutes. She finished with seven goals as well as two assists.

St. Paul’s (11-2) wasted little time responding, sparked by Marleigh O’Day standing up to a charge about five minutes into the game. Steer, O’Day and Herrera scored within three minutes to give the Gators a 3-2 lead.

Colette Quinn tied it at 3 and they were still tied, at 5, when lightning in the area delayed the game for two hours and 19 minutes. The delay, however, didn’t seem to affect either team.

“We played music. We definitely danced a lot,” Steer said. “We just tried to keep the energy and the morale up, because we came in so hard with so much energy ready for this game so we definitely kept that up in the locker room to make sure we stayed energetic.”

Hoskins scored the first goal after the delay on a free position for a 6-5 Gators lead. After that, the lead bounced back and forth for 20 minutes amid all the ties.

While Humphrey and Colette Quinn combined for 10 goals for the Blue Wave, six Gators scored, led by Steer and Natalie Shurtleff with three each.

Early on, the Gators struggled to contain Humphrey and they also struggled against the Blue Wave’s zone ride, something they had not seen before. Although the draws were almost even in the first half, the Blue Wave won 10 of 13 in the second half, including the last five.

After Frannie Hahn gave the Gators an 11-10 lead with 9:47 to go, Darien took advantage of a man-up situation with Humprey feeding Ryan Hapgood, cutting down the middle. They repeated that play less than a minute later and Anna Von Kennel then boosted the lead to 13-11 with 5:14 left.

The Blue Wave turned the ball over three times in the final five minutes and one led to Shurtleff’s third goal of the game with 1:25 remaining. The Gators also managed their last two chances to score thanks to another Darien turnover.

Despite the loss, the Gators were glad to play tough out-of-conference competition that showed them a different look than their everyday IAAM foes.

“I think this is one of the most challenging teams we’ll play all year,” Shurtleff said, “and it really was good to compete against them. I think it helped us grow as a team, defense, offense, everything.”

“And the mental game,” Steer added. “It was a very mental game. We had a two-hour break and everything was on the entire time. It was very mentally draining and I think this is important for down the stretch for the playoffs and further down in the season.”

DARIEN (CT) 13, NO. 2 ST. PAUL’S 12

(At Tierney Field, USA Lacrosse)

Darien 7 6 — 13

St. Paul’s 6 6— 12

GOALS: D—Chloe Humphrey 7, Colette Quinn 3, Ryan Hapgood, Anna Von Kennel; SP—Lauren Steer 3, Natalie Shurtleff 3, Caroline Hoskins 2, Marleigh O’Day 2, Frannie Hahn, Maggie Porter.

ASSISTS: D—Chloe Humphrey 2, Quinn Kennedy; SP—Lauren Steer, Natalie Shurtleff, Anne Regan.

SAVES: D—Hope Schoudel 5; SP—Susan Radebaugh 8.

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