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Portsmouth girls lacrosse beats Bishop Guertin in Division I semis
EXETER – The sign of a good team is that when things aren’t going well, they can still find a way to overcome adversity and pull out the win.
The Portsmouth High School girls lacrosse team withstood a late surge by four-time defending Division I champion Bishop Guertin to advance to its first Division I final with a 14-12 victory Saturday night at Exeter High School.
Second-seeded Portsmouth (18-2) will meet No. 1 Bedford (17-1) in Tuesday’s final in Exeter at 7 p.m. Bedford won the regular-season meeting, 14-10. The Bulldogs captured the earlier semifinal in convincing fashion, 13-0, over Nashua South.
The Clippers looked to have things well in hand with just over four minutes to play after Sally Collins intercepted a BG pass near midfield, rushed the goal and fed to Charlotte Marston who swooped in from the left to score and give Portsmouth a 14-9 lead.
But the sixth-seeded Cardinals (12-6) answered with three goals in a one-minute span – one by Annalise Campel and two by Lauren Redfern – that pulled BG to within two with 1:14 to play.
That was it. Portsmouth bent but did not break, holding firm at the end to secure the win and make the Division I final after winning the last five championships in Division II.
“I think there were a lot of calls that did not go our way and that I actually frankly disagreed with a lot,” said Portsmouth coach Jojo Curro. “That kind of affected the momentum of the game and put a little bit of a pin in us.”
“We had to dig deep in the last five minutes because that’s when you really have to work for it,” said senior middie Annie Parker.
The Clippers never trailed. They jumped out to a 4-1 lead in the first half on two goals by Avery Ruhnke and one each from Collins and Parker. They led 9-5 at the half.
Parker led Portsmouth with five goals, while Ruhnke had four and Morgan Ruhnke had three. Collins added two. BG’s Campel led all scorers with six goals.
The Clippers’ biggest second-half lead was five goals, which they reached on five occasions. Parker had two highlight-reel goals that kept the lead at five (12-7 and 13-8). The first came off a timeout with the Clippers down a player. They were looking for her to help run out the clock, but she was able to get out of an initial double team near the sideline.
“I saw the goalie out of the net, so I put my head down and went for it because in these games you kind of have to go for it to build momentum,” Parker said. “I think that’s a pretty hurtful goal for the other team. It’s a stinger.”
Goalie Sage Bussiere also had three huge saves on point blank shots by BG.
“She really stepped up too because those were saves that we needed,” said Curro. “We played great defense and had some nice offense.”
The final goal set up by Collins was nearly a backbreaker, but the Clippers were able to weather the final BG storm to move on to the final. Collins said she was in the right place at the right time to pick off the pass.
“I picked it off and went full speed and nobody was on me,” Collins said. “But then they slid and Charlotte was wide open. She took a beautiful shot and she scored.”
“We can’t control the uncontrollable,” Curro said. “How are we going to respond to it? How you respond is to keep going and keep playing.”
The Clippers did just that.
