There's nothing like a girls lacrosse playoff game on a hot sunny day in May. But when the Lady Vikings of Eastern visited the Lady Renegades of Shawnee, both teams brought their own heat with similar fast and furious styles. It was Shawnee who brought the most, winning convincingly 17-7 to take the South Jersey A title and continue their pursuit of a state title and also a potential rematch with their archrivals Moorestown.
Eastern opened the scoring with an unassisted goal by Lori Hillman after a minute of play. Shawnee responded with two goals in a 20 second span by Kate Shomo and Lindsey Calla (assisted by Shomo). The fast pace continued as Lauren Walls tied it up for Eastern at the 19:08 mark. The Lady Renegades again pulled ahead with two quick goals, with Shomo scoring her second (assisted by Stephanie Janice) followed by a score from Janice. Eastern would again tie it up, this time with goals score from free positions by Casey McCrudden and Hillman. At this point (13:12), Shawnee Coach Rudderow called a timeout, which seemed to refocus the Lady Renegades as they completed the rest of the first half with four unanswered goals (Donahue, Janice, Donahue, Farewell) to take the halftime break with a 8-4 lead.
Shawnee owned the second half, starting off with two goals from Deona Donahue within the first minute and a half (Donahue would lead all scorers with 4). Eastern would never get closer than 6 goals after that, as the Lady Renegades just wore them out over the long haul.
Shawnee's next opponent will be Bridgewater-Raritan, to be played this Wednesday at 5 PM at Toms River North, following the Moorestown vs. West Essex game. The winners will face each other on June 8th at Rutgers for the state championship.
Goals:
E: Lori Hillman 2, Casey McCrudden 2, Lauren Walls 1, Mary Beth Miller 1.
S: Deona Donahue 4, Kate Shomo 3, Jamie Farewell 3, Stephanie Janice 2, Jenna Tursi 2, Lindsey Calla 1, Annie Marchitello 1, Dawn Mennen 1.
Assists:
E: Shaun Banta 2.
S: Kate Shomo 2, Lindsey Calla 2, Stephanie Janice 2, Jamie Farewell 2.
Saves:
E: ?? 5.
S: Jennifer Weitz 7, Mia Davis 0.