Mount Hebron rolls by Reservoir in VSN/FOX45 Game of the Week

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As Trish Sullivan watched Reservoir’s girls lacrosse team take the field on Friday night, it marked the first time in five years that she was not on the Gators’ sideline as their leader.

Mount Hebron’s first-year coach led her new team against the familiar faces on the other side of the field.  The host Vikings used a strong start, scoring the game’s first six goals, on their way to a 15-1 victory in the latest edition of the VSN/FOX45 Game of the Week.

“It certainly wasn’t easy,” Sullivan said of facing Reservoir. “I don’t even know what words I could put to it. I’m feeling it right now because I’ve watched those girls grow up from ninth grade to twelve grade.”

Balanced scoring helped the Vikings (1-0) calm their coach’s nerves in her debut at her alma mater. Sophomore Haley Sutton led the way with three goals. Seniors Brittany Arens, Taylor Babin, Jenna Boarman, sophomores Sam Brookhart and Jenna Schwartz each added two goals.

Senior Lauren Ignacio scored the Gators’ lone goal, while keeper Emily Yumkas had seven saves.

O’Rourke’s goal off of a free position at the 17:53 mark in the first half opened up a 4-0 advantage for Mount Hebron. Boarman said Hebron wanted to get off to a good start.

“We knew coming in that it was going to be an emotional game for everybody but I think that gave us even more intensity,” she said.  “We definitely talked about coming out strong and scoring early and often because we knew that they were going to come out with a lot of emotion.”

The Vikings added two more scores before Ignacio put Reservoir (0-1) on the board but Hebron controlled possession of the ball throughout the contest and denied the Gators opportunities to get out in transition.

“The difficult thing for us was transition and keeping the ball in our sticks. It’s the fundamentals that we still need to work on,” said Reservoir coach Katie Lee. “We’re a very young team with only five returning varsity players from last year.”

She added: “Since the first day of tryouts until today, we’ve talked about this game. At first everyone wanted the game to be at the end of the season so we’d have the whole season to prepare it and learn to play as a team.”

Both teams are still working on learning from the new coaching staffs and look to progress as the season wears on.

“There are things that we’re tweaking, being new coaches and entering into the program.  We’ve changed a lot and we have a lot to work on,” Sullivan noted.  “But I couldn’t feel more welcomed. These girls really work their butts off and the community has been fantastic. I really feel like I’m home.”

Mount Hebron returns to action on Monday with a non-conference game against Westminster.  Reservoir opens its Howard County league schedule against Centennial on Monday.