Rustin Falls to Great Valley

While a trip to Walt Disney World in Florida during a break from school is always a welcome one for students, sometime there is a lot of work to be accomplished as well.

Great Valley's girls lacrosse team's travels to the Sunshine State last week were a mixture of pleasure and practice, and some of the lessons they learned on spring break enabled them to take an 18-11 win over visiting West Chester Rustin on Tuesday afternoon.

The Pats used a 10-goal second half to outlast the Golden Knights in the Ches-Mont League matchup. And after the win was in the books, GV head coach Joe Tornetta was quick to point to last week's 'vacation' as one reason.

"We did some things better today than we have all season," the veteran coach said. "Not everything, but some. And that goes back to last week when we worked on those things and applied them."

It appeared that the Patriots (10-1) were going to run away with the game right from the opening whistle, getting goals from Caroline Dodds (23:06), two from Ali Karwoski (19:08 and 18:48) and another from Emily Scullin for a 4-0 lead. Karwoski's second goal was a thing of beauty as she got the draw, raced the remaining half of the field and flipped a shot past Rustin goalie Jackie Smiler just 68 seconds after she scored her first goal.

The Golden Knights started to peck away at the gap when Mikayla Doane scored at 11:46 only to have Brooke Gamble counter for the Pats at 7:34 to maintain a 5-1 difference for Great Valley. To Rustin's credit, they hung in and got three scores in a span of 2:07 and, suddenly, the Golden Knights trailed by a goal, 5-4. The Knights (3-8) would, however, get no closer.

The Pats closed out the first half when Dodds scored off an assist from Rachel Kalick at 2:04, then Karwoski threw in shots at 1:32 and the 16.2 second mark for an 8-4 Great Valley halftime lead.

"We worked real hard to take care of the ball today, something we haven't been doing," Tornetta said.

At the start of the second half, Rustin got a quick score from Miller (four goals) at 23:42. The Pats fired right back as Sara McBride (23:18) and Scullin (23:02) got the lead to 10-5.

Two more goals in less than a minute from Rustin, including one by Emily Hubley  at 20:07 that came after she picked up a dropped ball from Miller and flung it into the net, to get to 10-7, it was obvious the Pats were in charge. Scullin and Kalick scored back-to-back and, after a Rustin tally, Scullin and Karwoski found the back of the net. With 9:39 to play, Great Valley was ahead 14-8.

During a 35-second spurt, the two teams scored three goals to make it 15-10. Great Valley capped things off with Kalick, Scullin and Gamble beating Smiler between 6:50 and 5:17 to forge ahead 18-10 before Rustin's Hubley ending the scoring for the day with a goal at 3:23 the resulted in the 18-11 final.

Tornetta said that, while the Pats were in Florida, "We played one game against Menlo, Calif., which we won 21-11, practiced, and the girls went to see Mickey. It was a good, intense week. We just tried to work on certain things that we just weren't getting early in the season."

He was also pleased with the play of Dodds, who moved to midfield for only the second time this season.

Scullin led all GV scorers with six goals; Karwoski had five; Gamble, Dodds and Kalcik two apiece; and McBride one.  Great Valley goalie Jenna Morris had six saves and Rustin's Smiler had 13.

"It was a good win over a solid team," Tornetta concluded. "I wish we would have played them earlier in the season. They lost to Downingtown East (15-14) on a late goal, so we knew they'd be tough."