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Friday, May 26 – For the third year in a row, the Rockbridge County High School girls lacrosse team won the Region 4D championship, earning a thrilling 10-9 comeback home win over Salem in double overtime on Friday night in Buena Vista. Battling through a crowd, Halina Homiak scored the winning goal about two minutes into the second three-minute sudden-death overtime period.
Playing on the turf field in front of a raucous crowd at The Fields at Southern Virginia University, the top-seeded Wildcats (15-1) overcame a rough first half, trailing 7-4 at halftime, to take down the third-seeded Spartans (11-5-1). It was the 14th consecutive victory for the Wildcats, who had beaten Salem 10-7 in their regular-season game on May 3 in Lexington.
Both RC and Salem advanced to the Class 4 state tournament. Next Friday, June 2, at 6 p.m. at SVU, RC will play host to the loser of the Region 4A finals, which is scheduled to take place on Tuesday, May 30 between Powhatan and Western Albemarle. Check back here to find out the opponent.
In Friday’s game, which was played at SVU because RC’s Prasnicki-Ross Field is being renovated, Lola Mulitalo led the Wildcats with four goals, while Homiak and McKenzie Hines each added two goals.
The Spartans took a 2-0 lead before Homiak scored the Wildcats’ first goal off an assist from Libba Erskine just under five minutes into the game. Salem’s Bailey Stratton responded with a goal about a minute later to stretch the visitors’ lead to 3-1.
After defensive stops by both teams, the Wildcats cut the lead to 3-2 when Nala Shearer scored off an assist from Maddie Dahl, but Salem’s Zoe Blair scored consecutive goals to put the Spartans up 5-2 with 6:42 left in the first half.
The Wildcats answered back with a pair of goals, one from Mulitalo off an assist from Dahl and one from Hines, trimming Salem’s lead to 5-4. Salem would score two goals in the final 17 seconds of the half, one from Stratton and one from Blair, to go up 7-4.
After halftime, the Wildcats found new energy, scoring three goals in the first five minutes. Mulitalo and Hines each scored a goal from the free position, and Lily Youngman put another in the net off an assist from Hines to tie the game 7-7. Mulitalo then scored another goal to give RC its first lead, 8-7, with 18:28 left in regulation, before Blair scored to tie the game a minute and a half later.
Salem went up 9-8 on a goal from Stratton with 4:06 left in regulation, but Mulitalo scored from the free position to tie the game 9-9 with 1:20 left.
The Wildcats nearly scored in the first overtime period, but Salem goalie Bailey Redford was there for the save. RC then put the game away when Homiak found her way through a flurry of activity to get the ball in the net.
Redford and RC goalie Rachel Hines each made five saves.
Blair led Salem with four goals, while Stratton scored three times.
Dahl led the Wildcats with six draw controls and two assists, while Erskine and McKenzie Hines each had one assist. Erksine led RC with four ground balls, and Mulitalo and Jaden McCoy each collected three ground balls. Defensively, Dahl and Erskine each had three caused turnovers.
Reviewing the game, RC head coach Susan Nye acknowledged that the Wildcats struggled in the first half but were “a much stronger team” in the second half. “We actually kind of put things together in the second half,” she said.
On winning the Region 4D title for the third consecutive year, the fifth-year head coach said, “That’s pretty exciting, especially being with some of these girls since their third or fourth grade, and to see them come to fruition now, it’s been incredible.”
In their third consecutive state tournament, the Wildcats look to build on the last two years, when they lost both times to Western Albemarle in the state semifinals.
