Bedford girls lacrosse team slows it down, gets first-round playoff win over Dover
· Yahoo Sports
BEDFORD — Once the Bedford High School girls lacrosse team slowed down, its scoring got going in its 10-7 NHIAA Division I first-round win over Dover on Tuesday.
Visit freshyourfeel.org for more information.
Powered by three goals from senior attacker Eloise Montagano, Bedford scored five of the game’s final six goals to earn its comeback win at Bulldog Stadium.
The eighth-seeded Bulldogs (9-8) will play at top-seeded and undefeated Portsmouth (15-0) in the quarterfinals on Thursday (5 p.m.). Ninth-seeded Dover finished with a 6-10 record.
Early on, Montagano said Bedford was frantic and kept shooting right at Dover sophomore goalkeeper Leighton Kelly.
“I feel like placing our shots helped a lot in the fourth quarter,” Montagano said.
The Green Wave led 6-5 at halftime before Montagano’s three second-half goals powered a 5-0 Bedford run.
Montagano knotted the score at 6-6 with her goal that came with 4:04 left in the third quarter and put Bedford ahead for good with a cutting goal that she scored 1:39 into the fourth frame.
The Connecticut College commit finished with a game-high five goals.
“We expect a lot of her and she usually comes through,” Bulldogs coach Christine Hodgdon said of Montagano, a two-year varsity player who has scored more than 100 goals.
Bedford’s second-half run was also aided by sophomore Mary Lenti’s stellar effort on the draw.
Lenti secured 16 of the game’s 21 draw controls and went 6-for-8 on the draw in the second half. She helped the Bulldogs dominate possession over the opening seven minutes of the fourth quarter.
Lenti, who did not play in Bedford’s 9-6 season-opening victory at Dover, recorded her 250th career draw control in Tuesday’s triumph.
“I definitely thought that that would be the difference-maker and it (was),” Hodgdon said of having Lenti for the rematch.
Kelly stood on her head in the Dover cage with 10 saves, eight of which came in the first half. She excelled at denying low shots from the Bulldogs, which Montagano said are their favorite shots to take.
In her first varsity season this spring, Kelly made nearly 120 saves.
Dover coach Gabbie Haug, a former goalie at Oyster River, said she worked a lot with Kelly last season.
“She’s a good backbone,” Haug said. “She kept us in the game today.”
Offensively, the Green Wave got four goals from junior Khloe Healy and one each from Kyra Small, Kaitlyn Bastille and Declyn Mangum.
Alongside five goals from Montagano, Bedford received two goals from Lenti and a hat trick from senior Carly Hodgdon-Rogers.
Bulldogs senior goalies Vye Hodgdon-Rogers and Irene Tsai made one save each.
Hodgdon said Bedford’s quarterfinal against two-time defending Division I champion Portsmouth will be difficult. The Clippers are deep, experienced and talented, she said.
Portsmouth beat Bedford 18-4 in the regular season.
“It’s hard to match up with a team like that but we’re going to give it our best game and we are going to show up,” Hodgdon said.