By TIM IRVING
“Aquinas is full of a bunch of cousins, brothers, sisters, everyone seems to be one big family here.”
First-year girls lacrosse coach Savanah Stoj is seeing the benefits of family as sisters Sienna and Savannah Hinchcliffe combined for seven points in a 14-5 victory over Eastridge on Tuesday.
Savannah had four goals and Sienna a goal and two assists. Carissa Schneider added three goals and McKenna Brown dished out five assists for the Li’l Irish, who improved to 4-0 on the season.
By the middle of the first half, Savannah, a freshman and the younger of the sisters, had three straight goals and the lead was 8-0.
“Watching them go after each other in practice, it’s a fun time,” Stoj said.
Schneider, Brown and Gianna Leonardi each scored multiple goals in the first half as Aquinas controlled nearly all the ground balls off draws through 25 minutes.
Stoj said, “A lot of ground balls is just turning on the gas, getting low and not backing down to your opponent so, I’m really proud of the girls.”
The Lancers (1-4) changed things up in the second half and put Skye Gaudio, a shorter player, against the taller Hinchcliffes and moved Ada Krupa to a wing to get after more ground balls, and it had some measure of success as Eastridge outscored the Irish 3-2 in the second half. Seniors Gaudio scored three goals and Nicole Hetzer scored the other two.
Both programs are trying to build through younger players. Lily Bell, who scored later in the game for Aquinas, Savannah Hinchcliffe, Schneider and Krupa are all freshmen, so both Bob Freeman for the Lancers and Stoj are digging in for the future.
“I hope it’ll be a learning process for my entire career here, “ Stoj said. “Right now, it’s the little things I’m focusing on and building a culture here that I want to stay with for a very long time.”
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