The Wellington High School girls varsity lacrosse team finished second in the district championships after a narrow 15-14 loss to Park Vista at home.
Both teams went goal-for-goal early in the game, but Park Vista jumped out to a lead in the second half, leaving the Lady Wolverines struggling to catch up. But Wellington battled hard to bring the game down to only 1 point, though ultimately they fell short.
A lightning delay stopped the game with only a few minutes left in the first half. Coming out of the break, Olivia DiCarlantonio scored to tie the score at 6. But the Lady Cobras responded with a goal to go into halftime leading 7-6.
Park Vista scored first in the second half. But Lady Wolverine Gabby Klyotskin grabbed the ball off the next draw and ran unchallenged to the goal to narrow Park Vista’s lead 8-7. Klyotskin followed it up with another goal on the next draw to tie the score at 8.
Both teams scored again to tie at 9. But soon after, Park Vista put in back-to-back goals to make the score 11-9.
Wellington’s Caroline Kurtz, with an assist by Klyotskin, scored with 19:30 left in the game. Then DiCarlantonio put in two goals, giving Wellington the lead 12-11.
Park Vista responded with a goal to tie the game at 12 with about 17 minutes left in the game. Both teams fought for nearly 10 minutes, with neither able to break the tie. Finally, with about 8 minutes left in the game, Park Vista scored to take the lead 13-12.
The Lady Wolverines continued to fight to hold back the Lady Cobras, and kept them from scoring for several minutes. But with 1:19 left in the game, Park Vista scored again to extend their lead 14-12.
What followed was an intense minute of play that saw three goals scored in less than a minute. First, Park Vista scored with one minute left on the clock to make the score 15-12.
Not willing to go down without a fight, the Lady Wolverines fought back. Kathleen Gerrits picked up the ball off the draw and passed to DiCarlantonio who put in a goal, making the score 15-13 with 50 seconds left in the game.
Wellington also picked up the next draw. Gerrits passed to Kurtz, who carried the ball into Lady Cobra territory. Kurtz passed to DiCarlantonio, who whipped the ball to Klyotskin, who put the ball in for a goal and narrowed the Lady Cobra lead to 1 point with 37 seconds on the clock.
But Park Vista got the next draw and when the buzzer sounded, the Lady Wolverines were down 15-14, giving them second place in the district.
