High School Lacrosse:
Lady Quakers Advance to Finals

Wednesday, May 27, 1998

By Gary Steiner
SJSports Staff Writer

The third-seeded Cherokee Chiefs visited the second-seeded Moorestown Quakers to fight for the right to go to the state girls lacrosse championship. Last year, the Lady Chiefs upset the Lady Quakers and knocked them out of the playoffs, so the Moorestown team was determined not to let Cherokee do it to them again.

When the two teams met in the regular season, it was a Moorestown 10-3 victory in a defensive contest. Today's game would be all offense, as both sides adopted an attacking style. Cherokee scored first on a free position from Mo Henwood. Moorestown immediately answered with a goal by Colleen Connors. Both teams then proceeded to trade goals (Mo Henwood - Cherokee, Kate Slotman - Moorestown, Summer Springstead - Moorestown, Adrienne Booth - Cherokee, Colleen Connors - Moorestown, Cheryl Back - Cherokee, Kate Slotman - Moorestown, Adrienne Booth - Cherokee) until Cheryl Back scored the final goal of the half to put Cherokee ahead 6-5.

The defense tightened up in the second half, as no goals were scored in the first 11 minutes. Then Becca Lippincott broke the dry spell with a goal for Moorestown, quickly followed by two goals from her teammates Kate Slotman and Megan Strenski to put the Lady Quakers ahead 8-6. The tempo of the game again slowed until the Lady Chiefs' Mo Henwood scored her third goal of the game. But Moorestown responded with a flurry of four goals in two minutes (Summer Springstead, Kate Slotman, Summer Springstead, Kateri Linville) to pull ahead 12-7. The Lady Chiefs managed to score three goals in the last four minutes (two by Cheryl Back and one by Tracy Rogalcheck) but it was not enough, as the Lady Quakers advanced to the finals with a 12-10 win.