PERRYSBURG — Perrysburg girls lacrosse got its first win of the season Tuesday and one day later it looked for a while like the Yellow Jackets would get its second straight victory in 24 hours.
On Tuesday at Steinecker Stadium, the Yellow Jackets routed visiting Ann Arbor Pioneer, 14-4, behind four goals on eight shots by senior attack Sara Yager and three goals and two assists on six shots by senior attack Ariyah Ellis.
Perrysburg coach Autumn Stevens said everything was clicking.
“We had an amazing game,” Stevens said. “Everything started to cook for us. The transitions were huge for us and then being able to practice our eight-meters (penalty shots) in practice was huge in that game.
“So we worked on those in practice and our transition just started to look really beautiful, so our goalies can play all the way out to the 50 (midfield), so we used that to our advantage.”
Returning to the same venue on Wednesday, Perrysburg was up, 6-5, on Sylvania Northview late in the first half when the Wildcats scored eight goals unanswered to defeat the Jackets, 14-9, in a Northern Lakes League game.
Perrysburg, which has won five straight NLL championships, now has its work cut out if the Jackets want to win a sixth consecutive. The Jackets have fallen to 1-6 overall and 0-2 in the league.
In the win over Pioneer, Perrysburg junior midfielder Shauna Frederickson scored two goals and had an assist on three shots and junior attack Lindsey Sutter scored twice.
Perrysburg senior midfielder Harshini Bharadwaj had one goal and one assist, and sophomore midfielder Sarah Modlin and freshman attack Ansley Cazel scored one goal apiece.
Yager and Frederickson led Perrysburg on the draw, taking three face-offs apiece, and Frederickson controlled five loose balls, freshman defenseman Meredith Kulmatycki controlled three LB, and Modlin had two loose ground balls.
The strong performance carried over into Wednesday’s game for two quarters, but after halftime everything came apart.
Northview outshot Perrysburg 11-3 in the first quarter, but the Wildcats had just a 4-3 lead.
In the second quarter, Perrysburg’s defense stiffened, allowing just two goals, but one of those was a penalty shot by Northview junior midfielder Kali Tsou at the halftime horn.
Before that, Yager had gotten her three-goal hat trick just 57 seconds into the second quarter. Then off a steal by Bharadwaj, senior attack Hannah Muck scored off an assist by Yager with 9:15 remaining in the half.
Sutter scored, assisted by Muck, to give Perrysburg its first lead, 6-5, with 5:55 remaining in the half. In addition, Perrysburg senior goalie Shaye Ledyard had 14 first half saves.
“We’re testing a few new things on the defense, attacks, and the ball,” Stevens said. “I think we found our groove yesterday in the win against Ann Arbor and then we used that again today.”
Stevens said her coaching staff is trying to drive some confidence in her players after they lost their first five games.
“Just talking to them about playing their game and not underestimating each other, because I think with a newer team, and rightfully so, they tend to underestimate each other,” Stevens said.
“But you can never do that because you never know who is going to get that great save, that great shot off, and I think that really came into play that second quarter.”
In the third quarter, Northview outscored Perrysburg 6-0, again outshooting the Jackets, 11-3.
“The third quarter I think they just started capitalizing on a lot of mistakes and we weren’t doing the same in return, attacking those ground balls and getting in the way of those passes,” Stevens said.
“Because we were able to get the ball and attack and just work it around, but we’ve got to work on that defensive pressure, too.”
Northview coach Greg Price, who saw his team improve to 7-3 overall and 2-1 in the NLL, said his team started showing more patience on offense.
“The difference in the third quarter was we settled down,” Price said. “We had girls who were trying to force too many balls going in. They were just trying to move things quickly.
“That’s our main thing — just slow it down, take the high quality shots and start moving it around and start making the defense make the mistakes, and it worked out much better.”
For the Wildcats, junior attack Claire Swartz led all scorers with five goals and two assists, Tsou had three goals and two assists, and senior attack Nivrithi Varghese had two goals and an assist.
Northview junior middie Kristina Smithers contribued one goal and two assists and senior midi Ava Hadeed, junior midi Maria Smithers, and sophomore midi Megan Gill scored one goal apiece.
The Wildcats outshot the Jackets, 36-17, including 29-15 in shots on goal, and Northview, behind Smithers at face-off, took possession on 16 of 26 draws.
For Perrysburg, Yager finished with four goals and two assists, Muck had two goals and an assist, Sutter scored twice, freshman attack Carly Friar scored a goal, and Ellis had two assists.
