Broadneck Girls Lax Taking Uneven Start In Stride

Falling behind two goals early in the third period, and fresh off a disappointing one-goal loss earlier in the week, it could have been a “here we go again” moment for the Broadneck girls lacrosse team.

But, as less experienced teams tend to do, they learned from their previous game and rose to the occasion.

Broadneck scored five of the game’s final seven goals, including Olivia Orso’s game-winner with 2:31 to go as the Bruins outlasted South River 10-9 on April 5, evening the three-time reigning 4A champions’ record at 3-3 on the young season.

Lily Trout had four goals to pace the Bruins, while Orso added three. Ceci Facciponti, Nora Lopes and Sienna Miller also found the cage for Broadneck.

Trout’s opening goal, and Facciponti’s tally that kickstarted a rally in the third period, both were the product of a combination of improvisation and ingenuity. Facciponti’s was flicked behind her back into the roof of the net, while Trout let fly with a backhanded shot that wrapped around her body facing away from goal.

“A lot of it’s practice, but honestly in that moment, I was just like, ‘Let me try and see what I can do here,’ so it’s just playing in the moment for me,” Trout said. “We focused on moving the ball, driving, and looking for opportunities. Moving the ball quickly helped a lot.”

Coming up with things on the fly worked for Broadneck’s attack, which also benefited from five goals on free-ball restarts. But the major adjustment Broadneck showed in the game was neutralizing South River’s standout Ava Linnell.

She had five goals, but just one in the second half, and that came not even two minutes into the third period. After that, junior midfielder Savanna Libby essentially marked Linnell out of the game.

“We just marked her up with someone different,” Broadneck coach Katy Kelley said. “(Libby) has a great reach, so I figured that was kind of a good matchup. And she’s a sound one-on-one defender, so that’s a difference-maker for us. I was excited to see that out of her.”

The Bruins had just been on the wrong end of a 12-11 game against Marriotts Ridge, and they made sure they kept alternating wins and losses, as has been the pattern so far this season.

Broadneck opened the season with an 8-7 loss to Cape Henlopen (Delaware) on March 23, then beat James Madison (Virginia) 20-7 four days later. They split a couple of holiday tournament games, losing 12-6 to Manchester Valley before beating Towson 15-9.

Despite the uneven nature of the season thus far, Broadneck is taking the long view. The Bruins graduated virtually their entire defense and their leading scorers, so jelling the team together this season was always going to be a work in progress.

“We’re just on a learning curve. We knew it would be like that this year, when you have a set kind of thing going on for three years and it shifts,” Kelley said. “We have people who have been with us in different roles now stepping up and learning and adjusting. That’s all I can really ask from them at this point. They do some really nice things that I’m excited about, so I’m optimistic about the group’s growth game-to-game.”

The Bruins’ test got even stiffer this week, as they faced Mount Hebron on April 8 and will go to Severna Park on April 12.