High School Girls Lacrosse:
Ocean City and Pennsauken Battle to 12-12 Tie

Friday, April 14, 2000

By Gary Steiner
SJSports Staff Writer

The Ocean City Red Raiders (2-3) visited the Pennsauken Indians (0-6) for a match up between two young teams. This game was fast and furious, with Pennsauken holding the lead for most of the contest. But Ocean City's Meredith Long managed to score in the last minute (her 5th of the game) to allow the Red Raiders to escape with a tie.

The game started out with both teams somewhat tentative, and possession changed several times. Things started to heat up when Meredith Long opened up the scoring at 19:13, and followed 13 seconds later with another to give the Red Raiders a 2-0 lead. Pennsauken got on the board when Jessica Prickett scored off of a free position at 17:56. Melanie Mason tied it up with another free position goal at 15:40. At 12:33, Long scored her third to pull the Red Raiders back in front. Four minutes would go by until Julene Downy tied it up again for the Indians. 38 seconds later, Prickett scored her second to put the Indians ahead. Andrea Sweeney would score Pennsauken's third unanswered goal by bouncing one in at the 4:23 mark. Carolyn Cummings would score the last goal of the half at 0:47 to leave the total at 5-4.

Maggie Long would open up the second half at 21:38 when she caught a rebound from Bernadette Cummings' save of a Meredith Long shot and fired it in to tie it at 5-5. A minute later Elisa Caracciolo would score to pull Pennsauken back in front. Downy would score her second for Pennsauken at 17:37 by coming around the back of the net, but less than a minute later Julie Southard would pull Ocean City back within one. Christine Maxine would tie it up at 14:39, then 16 seconds later Meredith Long would score her forth off of a rebounded save of her own shot to put Ocean City back ahead. Pennsauken then called a timeout, which seemed to help as Melanie Mason scored her second and third (13:47, 9:14), followed by Downy who again came around the back of the net and flipped an underhand bounce into the corner (6:56). But Ocean City would come back again, as Southard took a pass in the middle of the field and ran it in to score (4:55). Then Kelly Smith took the ball off the next face-off to tie it up again. Less than a minute later, Prickett would pull the Indians back ahead with an underhand flip for her third goal. Sweeney added an insurance goal at 2:02, and a good thing she did, as 19 seconds later Erinn Hayes scored to pull Ocean City back within one. Meredith Long made the final score at 0:46, ending this one in an exciting 12-12 tie.

Photos by Forrest Robleto