O.C. girls lacrosse snaps EHT’s 14-game win streak
EGG HARBOR TOWNSHIP — The Ocean City girls lacrosse team suffered a 12-11 loss to bitter rival Mainland Regional on May 4. The Red Raiders have taken out their frustrations on Cedar Creek and Egg Harbor Township the past two games, scoring 36 goals while allowing just 11.
On Thursday night, in the annual cancer awareness game, Ocean City stormed to a 6-0 lead in the first four minutes and never looked back, cruising to an 18-6 win over host Egg Harbor Township and snapping the Eagles' 14-game winning streak in convincing fashion.
The Eagles had been the talk of South Jersey girls lacrosse after going on a win streak that spanned 40 days, but they were no match for a motivated Ocean City team that is gearing up for postseason play.
Nicholl Fenton led the charge with a game-high five goals while Emily DiMarino and Lexie Sharp each added four for Ocean City. Rialee Allen chipped in with three and Dara Hennessy added a pair. The Red Raiders (14-3, 12-2) had a balanced offensive attack in the first half, as Sharp, Hennessy, Allen, Fenton and DiMarino each scored two goals. They also kept possession throughout much of the second half, forcing goalie Sarah Olandt to have to make only five saves all day.
Egg Harbor Township (14-3, 13-3) finally slowed Ocean City's offensive onslaught with 17:09 left in the first half as Jordan Santana scored to cut the deficit to 6-1. The Eagles got to within 8-4 when Nicole Jandras fed Erin Hogan for a goal with 8:25 left in the first half, but just as quickly Ocean City scored two more times to push the lead to 10-4. The Red Raiders were never really threatened after that, stretching the lead to 14-6 early in the second half, then adding two more goals to give themselves a comfortable 10-goal lead.
"I was actually reading the article (on acglorydays.com) about them in school today, so that was a pretty good motivator. We had to come out strong. If you let this team stick around, they're going to put goal in on you, and you don't want it to be that close," Fenton said. "It's a statement against the two losses. People might have thought we fell off a little bit, especially after we lost to Mainland. We want people to know that we are still around and that we're regrouping for the playoffs now. The Mainland game was a very tough loss for us, and we didn't take it lightly. We went back to practice and readjusted our game plan."
Allen agreed the loss to Mainland last week was a wake-up call for the Red Raiders.
"It definitely showed us what we needed to fix and what we need to work on for playoffs, so that fire we had after that game, we have to use that in other games. So it was a good reminder that we needed to get stuff done," Allen said.
Ocean City's powerful offensive attack was on display throughout the game, and EHT simply couldn't defend that many talented scorers.
"We have a bunch of girls who can score, and that's all we really need," Allen said. "We don't have to have one girl scoring all the goals because we can all score."
Contact Dave O'Sullivan: sully@acglorydays.com; on Twitter @GDsullysays
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