ERMA — The Ocean City and Lower Cape May Regional girls faced off in a March 28 game that was closer than the final 18-8 score indicated. It featured a pair of girls lacrosse teams that look little like they did a season ago.
Although the Red Raiders jumped out to a 5-2 lead in the first quarter, the second and third quarters were closer with 4-3 edges in scoring in both. The Ocean City girls turned it on in the final stanza, 5-0, to account for the final score.
The Red Raiders are the defending Cape-Atlantic League champion that finished with a 17-6 overall record and 9-0 in the American Conference of the CAL. LCMR was 12-8 last year and 5-5 in the conference.
Caper Tiger coach JoAnn McLaughlin said her team graduated a lot of seniors last year.
“We have a brand new defense with only one returning defender, so it’s definitely hard for us,” she said. That senior is Sophia Vitelli, the goalkeeper, who turned away 18 shots on goal by the Red Raider attackers.
“We’ve been working every single day to just improve on our defense and I think they showed up today, especially against the tough Ocean City team,” the coach said.
“I don’t think the scoreboard showed how hard we played, especially with a young defense,” she said.
McLaughlin said she will be looking to Vitelli and another returning senior, midfielder Olivia Lewis, to provide leadership for her inexperienced team, along with senior attacker Maddy Gilbert.
The coach will be looking to junior Ainsley Reed on the attack, along with Gilbert and Nora Shoffler. Reed scored three of the goals against the Red Raiders and Shoffler scored two. Lewis added another and Brooke Robinson added the other two.
McLaughlin said Shoffler and Lewis will be playing both sides of the ball and Giorgi Raymond will be another leader on defense with Vitelli.
The coach said the team’s goal is to “compete every day and go one game at a time, improving every single day and being able to compete in the tougher division that we’re in.”
Ocean City coach Lesley Graham also graduated a lot of seniors last year. This year she has what she calls “a lot of youthful energy.”
“We had a big graduating class last year that over the course of their four years in Ocean City had a huge impact on our program,” she said. “We don’t want to dwell on what we’ve lost. We are really focusing forward, but it is just a different team.”
Her team showed some of that youth in a pair of freshmen and a few sophomores in the starting lineup.
“We just have a lot more youthful energy, I will say, as opposed to inexperience, that we’re working through right now. Our team looks different. It doesn’t look better, it doesn’t look worse. It just looks different,” she said.
“We had some really good preseason scrimmages and we’re just sort of working out the chemistry piece of it. We have the puzzle pieces, we just have to figure out where they all fit,” Graham said.
The coach has three senior captains this year including Faith Paquing on defense, who is headed to Bowdoin College to play lacrosse; midfielder Ryan Cooke, who is going to Duquesne University to join her sister, Kelsea, a freshman player there; and Brynn Culmone, who unfortunately suffered a season-ending injury last summer. Culmone can’t play but has acted as a players’ coach.
“She’s just done a really good job for us, but we definitely miss her on the field. We miss her senior leadership and her speed and just her overall energy that she brings to the team,” Graham said.
On the attack, the coach has some younger kids — younger in age and experience — stepping up. They include junior Allie Hudson, who is coming off a strong basketball season, sophomore Laurel Munning and freshman Bella Donoulis.
Experienced midfielder Katie Pierce is a junior committed to go to East Carolina University, where her sister Gracie is a freshman lacrosse player. Freshman Marley Dwyer is another starting midfielder. “She’s just a hustler,” the coach said.
Defensively she has Gianna Vallese, Kam Smallwood, Reagan Wenner and Aliza Otton, a junior in goal.
Brynn Gallagher and McKenna Fleming round out the seniors on the team.
“We’ve talked a lot about the difference between working hard and competing and focusing on ourselves, no matter who we’re playing. We really want to make sure that every time we’re out there, whether it’s a practice, a scrimmage, a game, we’re not just working hard but we’re competing,” Graham said. “And it’s that mindset of trying to make ourselves better every time we’re there. If that means winning games or winning championships, that’s the end result of the process of putting in the work every day.”
Against LCMR, Marley Ostrander led the team with four goals. Munning, Pierce and Cooke had three each, Hudson had two and Lyla Clark, Delaney Ireland and Dwyer had one each. Otton had eight saves in goal.
Ocean City is at Egg Harbor Township at 4 p.m. April 2 and hosts Our Lady of Mercy Academy at 6 pm. Friday, April 4, at Carey Stadium. The Caper Tiger girls are at Holy Spirit at 4 p.m. Friday and host EHT at 4 p.m. Tuesday, April 8.
– STORY and PHOTOS by DAVID NAHAN/Sentinel staff
