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Potsdam stops SLP girls lacrosse

Rylee Preston of Saranac Lake Placid fires off a shot while leaping above Potsdam defenders Lauren Shipp (19) and Caroline Bergan during the second half of Tuesday’s Section X quarterfinal game at North Country Community College in Saranac Lake. (Enterprise photo — Lou Reuter)

SARANAC LAKE — A promising season came to a tough conclusion for the Saranac Lake Placid girls lacrosse team Tuesday after an 18-12 loss to Potsdam in the quarterfinal round of the Section X playoffs.

SLP had already swept Potsdam during the regular-season by winning two close games to earn the right to host Tuesday’s playoff battle. This time around, though, the Sandstoners were clearly the better team, especially during the early stages of the second half when they surged to a 10-goal lead.

SLP entered the game as the No. 4 seed and only trailed 8-6 at the intermission, but Potsdam took control, opening the second half with three unanswered goals in less than three minutes to push its advantage to five. Potsdam then opened up an 18-8 edge, which prompted its head coach Sarah Bullard to send in her reserves with a little less than seven minutes remaining in the match.

SLP caught fire late and buried the game’s final four goals, but it was too little, too late as the host’s season came to an end with a 6-6 record.

“It came down to Potsdam wanting it more than us today,” SLP head coach Shannon Bromley said. “We are pretty equal teams and it’s all about who shows up. We weren’t winning the 50-50 battles, and if you lose those over and over and over again, that’s a lot of time that you don’t have possession of the ball.

SLP’s Ryley Fischer gets past Potsdam defender Ani Akin and fires a shot past goalie Julia Basford during second-half action Tuesday. (Enterprise photo — Lou Reuter)

“Whether it was on the draw or ground balls, our basics weren’t on their A game today,” Bromley continued. “We were missing passes, we had sloppy passing. We pulled out a 12-11 win against them last week and our intensity was nowhere near that level today. Congrats to them.”

The Sandstoners, who are the playoff round’s fifth seed, will now face top-seeded Canton in a semifinal match Thursday at Potsdam High School.

“The girls showed up to play today, and really, right now, this part of the season, it’s 0-0,” Potsdam head coach Sarah Bullard said. “It’s a whole new season. Whoever comes to play is going to continue on. This was the best intensity we’ve had for an entire game all season.

“The quick ball movement, we were in control of the game, and we maintained that composure, which is so critical, even when you start getting up, because you can always take a back seat,” Bullard continued. “We never let up. Everyone got in.”

Senior Alana McDonald proved to be nearly unstoppable, as she racked up nine goals and three assists to lead the ‘Stoners to victory. Erica Slone and Josie Brusso also added three goals each in the win, Daysia Wagner tallied twice and Sophie Compeau found the back of the net once.

The ‘Stoners also had a solid one-two combination in goal, with senior Olivia Scott tending the net in the first half and Julia Basford taking over after intermission.

Sophomore Rylee Preston paced SLP with four goals. Playing in the final game of her high school career, Ryley Fischer scored three times for SLP. Olivia Ferebee and Lydia Bullock buried two shots each in the loss, and Alex LaDue scored once.

In addition to Fischer, a co-captain, five other SLP seniors competed in their last game of high school lacrosse.

SLP goalie Erica Swirsky is one of those players. She has been on the team since eighth grade and said the program has made huge strides, especially since last year when only 12 players were on the roster.

“I think the coolest part of being on the team this long has been watching it develop and change,” Swirsky said. “Although we lost tonight, we used to get beat by 10 points every game, so to be able to come this far and have the season that we did was really cool. Last year, we had like 12 people on the team.

“This year, to see the growth in numbers has been heartwarming for all the seniors and coach as well,” Swirsky added. “Just to know that even though we are leaving, the program is going to continue and it’s not going to slowly fizzle out, that’s a good thing. We started this season 31 strong.”

Co-captain Julia Chapin, Meghan Byrne, Kylee Clark and Mistre Newton round out the seniors on the SLP roster.

“Along with these seniors, we were all freshmen together,” Bromley said. “My freshman year of coaching was their freshman year of high school. I feel like the seniors and I kind of grew up together in this little endeavor of ours. Big leadership we’re losing with this group. A big group of six that will be hard to replace.

“There will be a lot of young numbers coming up,” Bromley continued. “A team of 30 girls this year. Six hard losses but we have a lot of girls ready to jump in and fill those shoes.”

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