The Piedmont High School girls lacrosse team took down the Justin-Siena-Napa Braves 13-8 on March 20 on a warm night at Witter Field.
The Highlanders are now 2-5 on the season while the Braves fell to 3-4. The 84 degree weather made the match exhausting for both teams.
Justin-Siena won the opening faceoff, and Evy Meerholz scored the first goal of the game in just over a minute despite Piedmont’s strong defense. The Highlanders kept up their good defense for the rest of the first quarter, but Yasmine Kumar scored the second goal for the Braves.
“That was another physical game, very physical,” head coach Carlton Chan said.
Piedmont scored its first goal of the game on a penalty shot by Peyton Watson with four minutes left in the half. Justin-Siena followed with goals from Ava Acker and Fiona Chafen, ending the quarter with a 4-1 lead.
“(The first quarter was rough, but) we realized that we could beat them on attack, and get them on defense, so once we realized that it became easy to play around on attack and get things going,” Watson said.
Acker scored nine seconds into the second quarter to make it 5-1. Piedmont and Justin-Siena’s defense kept the game in back and forth for the next six minutes before Watson scored her second goal of the game with four and a half minutes left in the half. She scored again 30 seconds later.
Piedmont began winning the faceoffs, and Hallie Burden followed Watson up with another two goals for the Highlanders in the final minutes.
“The big change (after the first quarter) was that Hallie started winning draws, and she really took over,” Chan said. “Once Hallie started putting the ball into the 50-50, then it made it really easy for Zoya and Sydney to get the ball. We lost the first eight or nine draws, and then Hallie just changed it up. The big difference in today’s game was the seniors. The seniors really picked it up.”
Justin-Siena defense began faceguarding Watson, but she still ended the quarter with a buzzer beater, making the score at the end of the half 6-5 Piedmont.
“I played well in the first half, but I was pretty out of the game in the second half with them faceguarding me,” Watson said.
Piedmont won the faceoff to start the third quarter, and kept up their previous momentum. Burden scored her third goal of the game off a penalty shot just over a minute. Watson followed up with another goal 43 seconds later
“Peyton just took over the game,” Chan said. “They couldn’t stop her.”
Piedmont continued to shovel down the faceoff wins and goals, with Sydney Latvala scoring a goal just under a minute after Watson.
“Especially in practice, we were stressing press out, press out, body contact,” Chan said. “Girls lacrosse is about making contact, and we can see that the reason the other team got fouls is they let us go, and they are getting body contact.”
The Highlander’s defense shut down the Braves, and Zoya Schulze dashed down the field and scored a goal for Piedmont off a penalty. Right after, Burden scored again. Justin-Siena pulled together and scored a goal through Sienna Grohol. Latvala got back at the Braves by getting her second goal with just a minute left in the quarter to put the Highlanders up, 12-6.
“Sydney is not the biggest player out there, but she has such high IQ,” Chan said. “She has high IQ, she knows where to get the ball, and she can go fast from stop to start. And she’s a leftie, so we run a play for her just off the left.”
The fourth quarter’s defense held strong on both teams, leading to back and forth down the field for the first five minutes before Latvala scored again for Piedmont.
“Finley (Veltri) did an amazing job of fighting for every ground ball in the back,” Chan said “We knew that they had a weak girl at X, and Finley pressed out, she must have gotten two or three ground balls off of that.”
Schulze kept Piedmont’s offense hot, taking multiple shots and recovering her misses. Kumar scored a goal for the Braves with just over a minute left, and Ruby Kreps ended the game for Justin-Siena with a final goal from deep.
“Zoya is our secret weapon. She’s got her stick handling down, she’s really quick, and she is kind of our safety valve too. She has so much speed, and she’s so smart,” Chan said.
The Highlander’s next games are against Lick-Wilmerding on March 24 and Granada on March 26. Both games are at home at 7 p.m.
Piedmont lost to Acalanes 18-5 on March 12. Hondorp had a goal for the Highlanders, as well as one from Burden and three from Schulze.
The Highlanders beat Dougherty Valley 8-7 on March 17. Schulze, Watson, Burden, and Latvala each had two goals for Piedmont.