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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 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 (11-51). 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. On Friday at 6 p.m. at SVU, RC will play host to the loser of the Region 4A finals, which was scheduled to take place yesterday between Powhatan and Western Albemarle. Visit www.thenews-gazette.com to find out the date, time and 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.
RC 17, CS 6
RC advanced to Friday’s regional title game and qualified for the Class 4 state tournament with a 17-6 victory over Cave Spring in the Region 4D semifinals last Wednesday in Buena Vista.
Mulitalo notched six goals as the Wildcats eliminated the fourth-seeded Knights (114). Shearer totaled four goals and three assists for RC, while McKenzie Hines also scored four goals, and Dahl recorded two goals and three helpers.
Morgan Allardi, Lilly Swanson and Cassidy Egle tallied two goals apiece for Cave Spring.
Both offenses started slowly, and the game was tied at 1-1 after 16 minutes. But the Wildcats reeled off a 6-1 run in the final 8:59 of the first half, getting two goals and two assists from Shearer during that stretch as they assumed a 7-2 halftime lead.
“I think we just came in tight. Our passes were a little bit late; everything was just too constricted,” said Nye, who added that her team regrouped during a stoppage in play. “A timeout happened, and we were finally able to relax a little bit.”
RC would go on to score seven of the first eight goals in the second period, pushing out to an insurmountable 14-3 margin when Shearer scored her fourth goal with 9:54 to go.
The Wildcats continued to pad the lead despite the Knights’ dominance in draw controls. Cave held a 15-9 advantage on the draw circle – including a 12-2 mark in the second half – led by six controls on the night from Eagle and four apiece from Allardi and Swanson.
RC made up for that deficit by executing well defensively, and Rachel Hines made six saves in the game. The Wildcats were also extremely efficient in transition and on the offensive end, scoring their 17 goals on just 19 shots.
“Our defense played very well … and we were on defense a lot because we were losing the draw,” Nye said. “I thought our transitions – making those passes, and making the passes quick – that was a good part to the game.”
While the ’Cats will aim to take the next step in the Class 4 bracket this spring, they can also relish an impressive accomplishment for its own merit.
“We’ve done so well the last couple of years,” Nye said. “I think for the girls, now it’s become a mission to make it to state [the state tournament] every year.”
RC 21, JF 2
RC rolled past eighth-seeded Jefferson Forest 21-2 in the Region 4D quarterfinals in Buena Vista on Monday of last week.
Mulitalo tallied six goals and Shearer racked up four goals and four assists to pace the Wildcats. McKenzie Hines recorded three goals, three assists and a game-high seven draw controls for RC.
Madison Weaver made 11 saves for the Cavaliers (4-11). For the game, RC outshot JF 36-7 and held a commanding 21-3 edge on the draw circle.
Mulitalo scored twice inside the opening 28 seconds of the contest, part of a 10-0 Wildcat run in the first 12 minutes of the game. RC forced 15 Cavalier turnovers in the first half, and the ’Cats turned several of those into goals within seconds of gaining possession.
“We really wanted to focus on, particularly, just efficiency with plays,” Nye said. “And also, as soon as we caught the ball in transition, to immediately look for the pass, and not take four more steps – to make our transitions smoother and quicker. I think they did that really well on several occasions.”
RC led 15-1 by halftime, cruising to another lopsided victory over a regional opponent. But the second half had at least one key highlight: the 200th career save for senior goalie Rachel Hines.
After not facing a single shot on goal in the first 25 minutes, Hines tallied four saves after the break, pushing the Libertybound netminder past another milestone.
“Two hundred career saves for her is pretty incredible, considering how few shots she gets,” Nye said, referring to the dominance of the RC defense. “For her senior year, to do it now, we’re so proud of her and all the work that she puts in.”
The Wildcats also made a quick adjustment to the artificial turf at SVU. Even though certain aspects of the game change on a different surface, that didn’t seem to have much of an impact on the statsheet, as the ’Cats held a 24-15 advantage in ground balls.
“The game is just so much faster” on turf, Nye said. “When you’ve been playing on grass for so long, even picking up a ground ball is different; how you cut is different.”
Homiak added three goals for RC, while Youngman scored twice and Erskine totaled one goal, two assists and five draw controls. Mulitalo also scooped up six draws in the game.
