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No vacation for Cards as they trip up Sabers 11-8

By Tom King - Staff Writer | Apr 24, 2019

Telegraph photo by TOM KING Souhegan's Savannah Behn gets a shot off at an open net despite the defense of Bishop Guertin's Sydney Todd during Tuesday night's key Division I clash at Stellos Stadium.

NASHUA – Bishop Guertin High School girls lacrosse coach Kerry Gobiel weeks ago took a look at when her team was slated to play Souhegan and cringed.

“Seven o’clock on school vacation when you’re out of your routine is not the best,” she said.

If you think that had her worried, you can just imagine what she was thinking when her Cards were down 3-0 to the Sabers in the first four minutes of the game. But Guertin recovered with five straight goals, led 7-5 at halftime and held on late for a big 11-8 Division I win.

It’s a different year for the defending champions, now 6-0. Last year an overtime loss to the Sabers was one in a stretch of defeats against good teams. This year they’ve now beaten three, if you include Pinkerton and Chelmsford, Mass.in that mix.

“I think the most important thing with the girls is you just have to stay composed,” Gobiel said. “We were down, but we were down a lot last year. I think we’ve learned how to be OK with being down and just slowly chipping away.”

Doing more than chipping was sophomore Lindsay Hult, who scored four goals to lead the winners, while freshman Rylee Bouvier and Abby Ahearn each had two goals and an assist. Single goals were by Madison Keating, Amelia Piercy and Natalie Coutu.

The Sabers, though, got two goals each from Savannah Behn, Taylor Clark (plus an assist) and Hannah Rowe. Abby Hawkes and Clare Woodford had single tallies.

“This is our first tough game that we’ve seen,” Sabers coach Maren Petropulos said. “We’ve had a slow start, we’re not worried. There are some great takeaways. But they (BG) were able to capitalize on the draw. … We have a young team, I’ve got three seniors out there starting. To be the first competitive game of the season, we’re not that (disappointed). All the girls that were out there played their heart out.”

Guertin goalie Makeena Reekie got caught turning the ball over about 20 yards from her net nearly four minutes in, leading to an empty net goal and things were coming up Black and Gold. Then they turned to Green and Gold.

“We were a little frantic, but we picked it up and controlled it more,” Hult said. “We won draws and settled down on offense and used our plays.”

Still, when Clark scored with 14:19 left, the Sabers were within one at 8-7. But at goal by Bouvier less than a minute later restored the Cards’ two-goal advantage, and Hult put the Sabers in a hole with one of her scores with 7:11 left to make it 10-7.

Abby Hawkes made it interesting off a feed from Rowe with 48.8 seconds left, but Guertin won the all-important draw and Ahearn beat Saber netminder Alex Labosse (a great 13 saves) with 18 ticks left and it was over.

Meanwhile, Reeke had 10 stops, including a few down the stretch, that more than made up for her mistake earlier in the game.

“As a freshman, I could not be more proud of her,” Gobiel said. “She made some good saves. Everyone makes mistakes.”

And there’s no vacation for either team. The Sabers are at Exeter (5-1 at last look) on Friday, while BG also heads to the seacoast vs. Dover. There’ll be plenty of time for vacation after the first week of June.

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