After blowing a seven-goal lead, Westminster needed a change. It came from the defense.
The Wildcats started pressuring more in the backfield to create turnovers and regain the momentum to defeat McIntosh 12-9 in the Class AAAA-A girls lacrosse semifinals Wednesday.
It was a game of streaks, with the Chiefs taking a 1-0 lead before Westminster rolled off eight consecutive goals — five in a 1-minute, 33-second span of the first half — to take what looked like a commanding 8-1 advantage with 9:37 left before halftime.
That turned out to be too much time for McIntosh, though. The Chiefs (16-1-1) started controlling nearly every draw and scoring consistently out of their set offense.
The final three goals of the half went to McIntosh’s Hannah Mason, cutting the Wildcats’ lead to 8-6 at the break.
The Chiefs’ momentum continued at the start of the second half, with goals by Kristen Farren and Senneca Ward completing the comeback and tying the score 8-8 with 20:42 remaining.
Westminster (20-1) took at timeout after that score, and coach Jay Watts looked to settle his team that suddenly looked very vulnerable at home.
“It was just to relax them, [to get them to] do the things we’re capable of doing,” Watts said. “They had switched up a couple of people on defense, and we moved a couple of people around on offense to give us a different look.
“They had spent so much emotion and energy catching up, once we got that first goal, it kind of made the bubble pop.”
A big part of doing that was a change in strategy on defense, putting significant pressure on the McIntosh offensive players in their backfield, trying to prevent them from getting any sort of a rhythm or being able to get into that set offense that was so effective for 12 minutes.
Watts said he stressed to his players that it’s not just the defenders who can force turnovers, and he said using team defense turned the game back in the Wildcats’ favor.
“We always tell our attack that you play defense as soon as they get the ball,” Watts said. “We had a couple of missed shots, turnovers, missed opportunities down here on our end. The attack quickly switched over to a run, play defense and they got the ball back for us. For about four or five minutes there, I don’t know if they got it across midfield.”
That allowed Westminster to convert those turnovers into offense of its own, scoring four straight, including two from Taylor Kaplan, who finished with four goals and two assists.
The Chiefs finished with just one goal over the final 20:41 of the game.
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