Worcester Girls Outlast St. Andrew's, 10-7

BERLIN- Worcester Prep's girls' varsity lacrosse team built a big early lead over St. Andrew's at home on Tuesday and withstood a comeback effort in the middle that saw their lead cut to just one goal before closing the deal with a couple of goals early in the second half to pull away for a 10-7 win.

The Mallards scored first just 45 seconds into the game on a goal by Molly Dickerson to take a quick 1-0 lead, but St. Andrew's retaliated just 10 seconds later to tie the score at 1-1 before even one minute ticked off the clock. At the 21:42 mark of the first half, Worcester's Kelly Chandler took a nice feed on the crease and converted the goal to put the Mallards ahead early, 2-1.

About a minute later, Worcester's Mary Hudson took a pass on the crease from Dickerson from behind the goal and found the back of the net to extend the lead to 3-1. With just under 17 minutes left in the first half, Dickerson scored on a fast-break opportunity to extend the lead to 4-1. After Worcester won another draw, Sara Noyes converted another quick goal to push the Worcester lead to 5-1, and Chandler scored again with just over 13 minutes remaining to extend the lead to 6-1.

Throughout the first half, St. Andrew's was very methodical on offense while Worcester employed a much faster pace. St. Andrew's finally broke the ice and ended a scoring drought that went back to the first minute of the first half with a goal at the 12:00 mark on an indirect penalty to cut the lead to 6-2.

Once again, Worcester had the answer, scoring on a goal by Zanny Smith off a nice feed from Dickerson to extend the lead to 7-2 with 11:26 remaining in the first half. About a minute later it was Smith scoring again, this time on an assist by Sophie Townsend, to push the lead to 8-2.

The scoring barrage for Worcester stopped right there, however, as St. Andrew's methodically got back in the game with its deliberate offense. St. Andrew's scored on a well-designed play at 9:43 to cut the lead to 8-3. The Cardinals scored again at the 7:15 mark in the first half on a designed play in the offensive end to make it 8-4 and scored again just 14 seconds later after winning the draw and taking the ball right down the middle to cut the lead to 8-5 with just over seven minutes left in the half.

The score remained 8-5 for much the rest of the half before St. Andrew's scored with just over a minute remaining to cut the lead to 8-6. The Cardinals attacked the Worcester goal and eventually scored after a series of stick infractions by the Mallards. The score was 8-6 at the half and a game, which the Mallards appeared to be running away with, was far from over.

At the start of the second half, St. Andrew's scored after just over a minute had elapsed to cut the lead to 8-7 and it appeared the Cardinals had all the momentum. However, Dickerson scored again for Worcester less than a minute later to extend the lead again to two goals at 9-7. With just over 19 minutes left in the game, Chandler scored for Worcester on a nice assist from behind to extend the lead to 10-7.

With just over 19 minutes left, Chandler's goal would prove to be the last of the contest as Worcester went on to win 10-7. Both teams continued to apply pressure on each other's goals, but the defenses, and some great goalkeeping on both sides, held the score right there, which is how the game would end.

For Worcester, Chandler scored three goals while Dickerson contributed two goals and four assists. Zanny Smith and Sara Noyes each scored twice, while Sophie Townsend added a single goal. Worcester's Alex Lewis was outstanding all day, collecting 14 saves.