By Marcus Krum
Staff Writer
@marcuskrum

On Thursday night, with the playoff intensity ringing throughout S.P. Lesley Field, the pressure and excitement of a rivalry game in the first round of the playoffs was high. However, the Cowgirls lacrosse team did not allow their emotions to get to them, finishing off the night with a 16-4 rout of Southlake Carroll.

From the start, the Cowgirls dominated in all facets of the game. Sophomore attack Abbi Waters scored to give them a 1-0 lead a mere 42 seconds into the game. After the Lady Dragons tied it at 1-1 with 20:53 in the first half, junior midfielders Mia Harp and Ashley Bartlett took over. The duo combined for four goals in the next six minutes of the game, and after junior midfielder Delaney Dendy scored, the Cowgirls lead was extended to 6-1.

“We haven’t really played a game in about two weeks, so I thought they came out really strong. They were rallying with each other, and ready to battle against the other team,” CHS girls lacrosse coach Molly Ford said. “I thought they played really well. We need to fix some things before [our next game] but overall, I thought they did really well.”

After Southlake Carroll scored to pull within four goals, the Cowgirls picked up the pace even more, consistently putting pressure on the defense of the Lady Dragons. They ended the first half with a 12-2 lead, three of their goals coming from Harp.

“There’s definitely some things we need to work on,” Harp said. “But overall, we pulled out the win, so it was very good.”

At the beginning of the second half, Carroll started off with momentum, scoring two minutes into the half and cutting the Cowgirls’ lead down to nine. However, junior attack Charlotte Hayden, who finished with a team high six goals, kept applying pressure, scoring two more goals, leaving the score at a 16-4 rout to end the game.

“The goal is to focus on the next game. So we focus on the semifinal game, and once we win that, we’ll focus on districts,” Ford said. “We’re looking to get into one of the top two seeds going into state.”