LEWISTON — Thornton Academy used a well-balanced attack to defeat Lewiston 10-3 in girls’ lacrosse action at the Franklin Athletic Complex Saturday morning.
The Golden Trojans had eight different goal scorers, with Jules Grondin and Shannon Moskowitz each scoring twice to lead the way.
“That’s what one thing we stress, we want to get a good balance,” Thornton Academy coach Craig Agreste said. “If a team has one good scorer, it’s easy to key on one person. We are confident with seven or eight, even nine of our girls to score. That helps us a lot on the offensive end. I will be honest, every game, it’s a different girl.”
Kristina Blais factored in all three of Lewiston’s goals as she potted two and set up a Dacia Bail goal in the second half.
Scoring depth is one thing Lewiston coach Skip Capone is trying to build.
“Craig does a very good job,” Capone said. “We are aspiring to get to that point. They are very skilled and they do a great job. It’s tough when you have that many girls. Some teams have one or two that you can focus on. They are just a really good team and we learned a valuable lesson today and we are trying to get better.”
The Golden Trojans (5-2) dominated the game offensively in the first half, and opened the scoring four minutes in when Grondin found the back of the net. The game opened up later in the half when Thornton scored three times in a two minute span. Moskowitz found the back of the net at the 9:47 mark, while Hannah McAlary scored 41 seconds later. Paige LeBlanc added another 11:33 into the first half.
“(Lewiston) plays a zone defense, we are kind of getting better at working against them,” Agreste said. “The key to that is being patent in the offensive end and we were. We were able to posses the ball for a time and we were able to get some good looks. The girls in the first half were very patient and made the goals count when we needed them to.”
Blais got Lewiston on the board at the 16:19 mark of the first half.
“We have played two pretty good teams back-to-back,” Capone said. “You have to give (Thornton) credit, they played very well. We had some opportunities to make it a little closer in the first half. We had one penalty that hurt us, they scored a couple of goals, but other than that, I am proud in the way the girls played. We have a lot of lacrosse left to play, it’s a leaning experience, we are six and two and we just have to keep on battling.”
Again Thornton Academy quickly struck with multiple goals, this time two in a 50-second stretch. Faith Sinclair extended the lead to 5-1 at the 17:26 mark while Moskowitz scored her second of the game at the 18:16 mark.
Amanda Cyr capped the scoring in the first half when she carried the ball end-to-end and fired the ball past Lewiston goalkeeper Kaylyn Labonte.
Alana Pettaway opened the scoring in the second half at the 3:30 mark to extend Thornton’s lead to 8-1.
Nearly eight minutes later, the Blue Devils notched their second goal when Bail found the back of the net.
“In the second half it was different, we were able to hold on to the ball and we transitioned the ball pretty well and the result was three to (two),” Capone said. “We know we can do some good things, but we have a long way to go.”
In second half, Agreste looked to his bench and started to sub in more players.
“Right now, we are trying to gain some depth and the best way to gain some depth is to get experience,” Agreste said. The only way you are going to gain experience is to play.”
One of those bench player was Cat Henaire, who found the back of the net for Thornton’s ninth goal.
With eight minutes left in the game Blais picked up her second goal.
Grondin capped the scoring for the Golden Trojans with fewer than three minutes to play.
nfournier@sunjournal.com
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