Menlo junior Sophie Scola scored three goals and added an assist to lead her team to a 9-8 nail-biting West Bay Athletic League Foothill Division victory over rival Sacred Heart on Tuesday evening, taking the inside track on the regular season girls lacrosse title.
The Knights improved their record to 8-1 while the Gators fell to 7-2. Menlo is now in first place in the WBAL, moving one game ahead of Sacred Heart, who stands in second. Menlo-Atherton and Mitty are tied for third, two games back of Sacred Heart Prep with three matches remaining.
“We knew it was going to be hard going into it,” said Menlo head coach Liz Shaeffer. “Last time we played them in overtime and they won. Playing them, especially on their home turf is always going to be a close game. Tensions are always high. I always tell them to keep is easy. Taking the easy pass, and don’t over think. Them just doing all the little things right was big.”
With 31 seconds left in the second half, Sacred Heart’s Genna Gibbons drove in for the shot, but sophomore Alyssa Sahami stuck her stick out and made a huge save, sealing the win for the Knights.
“I was really nervous,” said Sahami, about the clutch save. “I just had to focus on the ball. I always watch it through my stick, and that time it worked and I was really happy.”
In the first half, the Gators started hot. Gibbons and Allison Carter each scored a goal in the first three minutes of the game. Carter had a great game and finished with three goals while Gibbons cashed in two goals herself.
Later in the first half, Menlo started to have its way with the Gator defense. Scola, Charlotte Swisher, Bella Scola, and Abby Wolfenden each scored a goal in a stretch of seven minutes. The Knights took a 5-3 edge into halftime.
“Our energy was working,” said Shaeffer of the offense in the first half. “Sometimes when we come out flat to games we’re a completely different team. Today they were hyping each other up from the sidelines to the defense turning it into the attack. That translates to their overall confidence in the midfield as well.”
Menlo came out of the gates fast in the second half. The offense broke free for four early goals. Sophie Scola accounted for two of them goals. Swisher and Wolfenden scored their second goals of the game as well.
The Knights made it a 9-4 lead with just under 11 minutes left in the game.
“She had an incredible game,” said Schaeffer of Scola. “That’s one of the better goalies in the conference. She came in with a lot of fire and she had some really key turnovers for us so that was huge.”
The Gators weren’t done. Carter, Ingrid Corrigan, and Lauren Hagerty each scored some nifty goals, all within three minutes of each other. It was suddenly 9-7.
With four minutes on the clock, Carter found Corrigan and the junior smashed it home making it a 9-8 deficit. With 31 seconds left in the game, the Gators called a timeout.
“I just told them, ‘try to make it so that the ball was in the goalie’s stick for as long as possible’. We kept Sophie on her for that. I told them to ‘make sure if they do get the ball, we’re doing the right things, nobody is going for a bad check’. It takes footwork, slowing them down and make every single shot take as long as they possibly can,” said Schaeffer.
The Knight defense prevailed in a clutch situation. Sahami knocked the ball away from Gibbons and Menlo triumphed.
Menlo will look to keep its five-game win streak alive when it hosts Burlingame (2-6) on Friday while Sacred Heart visits Archbishop Mitty (6-4) on Friday as well. Menlo and Sacred Heart defeated both teams already this year.
“Cautiously optimistic is the way that I would look at the rest of the season,” said Shaeffer. “You never want to overlook any opponent. We prep for every single person the same. We look at the film for everyone and really want to make sure we don’t have any hiccups along the way.”
Mitty beat visiting Castilleja, 14-8, in another WBAL Foothill contest. Anika Adzich scored six goals for the Gators (6-9, 4-6), who host St. Francis at El Camino Park in Palo Alto on Friday at 4 p.m.
Adzih added seven draw controls while Sammy Wong recorded a pair of assists and Anike Tse made 12 saves.
In the Skyline Division, Sequoia Beat Priory, 19-4. The Panthers (2-6, 2-4) host Notre Dame-Belmont at 4 p.m. Thursday.
Softball
Palo Alto never led its SCVAL El Camino Division game Tuesday until Lindsey Kim crossed the plate with the winning run in the bottom of the seventh inning of its dramatic 4-3 victory over rival Gunn.
The Vikings (6-7, 3-3) did to Gunn what the Titans (4-10, 2-6) did to Paly just over a month ago. Gunn scored in the bottom of the 10th inning.
Zoe Silver delivered the game-winning double after the Vikings loaded the bases on Sydney Liu’s single and walks to Kim and Victoria Soulodre.
Gunn took a 3-2 lead in the top of the seventh when Julia Oklander, Romi Miller and Emma Sloan all singled ahead of Michele Schwarzwalder’s sacrifice fly.
Schwarzwalder also drove in Gunn’s first run and Maddie Ta followed with an RBI single to give the Titans a 2-0 lead in the third.
The Vikings tied the game in the fifth. Ella Jones walked, stole second, went to third on Samantha McBride’s groundout and scored on a passed ball. Kim and Sophie Frick each singled ahead of Soulodre’s RBI double.
Kim went the distance for the victory. Sloan, who took the loss, had three hits for Gunn.
Baseball
El Camino scored in the bottom of the eighth to beat visiting Menlo-Atherton 2-1 in a PAL Ocean Division contest Tuesday.
Tommy Eisenstat collected three hits and drove in a run for the Bears (10-9, 6-3), who host El Camino at 4 p.m. Thursday. Daniel Heimuli added a pair of hits.
James Sullivan gave up four hits and struck out seven in five shutout innings.
Boys golf
Sacred Heart Prep shot a solid round of 185 but host Harker was a little better at 175 at Los Lagos GC in a West Bay Athletic League match Tuesday.
The Gators (5-6, 5-4) were led by Luke Peterson (35), Finn O’Kelly (36) and Anikait Bhardwaj (37).