The Gorham girls’ lacrosse team picked up their first win of the season in convincing fashion with a 17-8 victory over Bonny Eagle on THursday, April 26. Kayla Nielsen led the Rams with seven goals and Rochelle Michaud scored four. Rebecca King and Melissa Ruel led Bonny Eagle with three goals apiece.
The turning point in the game didn’t even happen on the field. Early in the second half, Bonny Eagle scored three straight goals to pull within 10-7. The Scots were finding their groove and they seemed ready to make a run at the Rams. But Dolley called a quick timeout to talk to her team.
“I said we need to make a couple adjustments on defense with communication,” Dolley said. “We weren’t getting back fast enough.”
Gorham responded to the sideline chat with five goals in a six-minute span to put the game out of reach.
Bonny Eagle struck the game’s opening blow when Ruel scored 1:15 into the first half. That was the last lead Bonny Eagle would have. Less than a minute later, Gorham tied the game at when Nielsen found the back of the net. The Rams took the lead for the first time when Ashley Martin scored just a couple minutes later. King soon tied the game at 2-2 shortly after Martin’s goal, but the Rams took the lead for good just 21 seconds later on Nielsen’s second goal of the contest.
“We had trouble getting momentum going,” said Bonny Eagle coach Judith Martin. “There were a lot of checks that stopped the momentum. We had a lot of trouble with our passing. Their goalies had some great saves and our goalie struggled.”
The Scots did their best to keep the game close in the first half. Gorham led 5-2 when King scored again. But Gorham put some distance between themselves and the Scots when they scored three straight goals in the final four minutes of the half to make it a five goal game.
Gorham made it a 10-4 game early in the second half before Ruel and Richardson scored the next three goals for the Scots to dut the deficit to 10-7.
“We had some injuries,” said Coach Martin. “We had some girls sitting out that couldn’t play so we had to use JV players. We’ll get them back and we’re going to come back strong.”
The Scots are now 0-2 after a loss to Marshwood. They were scheduled to face Thornton Academy on Wednesday, May 2.
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