Grafton, Cole lead Abington to girls lacrosse win
By Scott Roche / ENTERPRISE CORRESPONDENT
With Abington (4-4) clinging to a 3-2 lead midway through a back-and-forth first half, senior Maddie Grafton scored three goals in the final 12 minutes of the opening half to keep the Green Wave in the lead for good, and classmate Emma Cole scored her first career hat trick to help Abington to a 10-4 South Shore League victory over East Bridgewater.
EAST BRIDGEWATER - On a team the includes 16 combined freshman and sophomores, it was the only two seniors on the Abington High School girls lacrosse roster that stepped up in a big way on Friday afternoon.
"I thought we played really good as a team,'' Abington coach Meredith McManus said. "Our leading scorer (Grafton) had four goals and Emma Cole had her first career hat trick and really picked up the pace for us and played really well.
"I told the kids if we get a lead, we have to able to put (East Bridgewater) away because they're a hungry team looking for their first win. I thought if we were able to get a two-, three- or four-goal lead that it might deflate them. Give credit to East Bridgewater as they came out with a good game plan face guarding Maddie and we had to adjust to that. I thought once we adjusted to it and Maddie got the three goals in the first half, it kind of set the pace of the game for us and that was huge.''
Liberty Woods scored the two first-half goals for Abington and Cole netted one - off-setting a three-goal first half by East Bridgewater senior Marissa McCarthy - to give the Green Wave a 6-3 halftime lead.
Grafton picked up in the second half where she left off in the first half by scooping up a ground ball and going the length the field for her fourth game at 3:56.
East Bridgewater marked Grafton and that left the field open for Cole and she took full advantage by scoring two goals to complete her hat trick. Emily Coulsey found the back of the net for a 10-3 Green Wave lead and East Bridgewater's Victoria Hunter scored the Vikings' goal in the second half.
Abington goalie Jessica Rox made 12 saves to record the victory.
"Jessica has had a great year,'' McManus said. "Her freshman year she came out and had never played the sport and I threw her in net. Eight of her saves were in the second half and she's a great vocal leader for us. She's calling out the cutters to our defense because we play a zone and we have to move with the cutters. Jessica does a great job and is one of our quarterbacks on defense for sure.
"Getting back to .500 is important for us because we want to make the tournament after missing by a game last year. I keep telling the kids that the games early in the year and the middle of the year are just as important. You don't want to lose close games like we did to North Quincy earlier this year, but this gets us to 4-4 and we have three games next week and we have to dig down deep each game.''