The Hall girls lacrosse team defeated South Windsor 16-6 Wednesday in West Hartford, as Lucy Gwiazdoski reached the 100-goal milestone.

Sports reporting is sponsored by Keating Agency Insurance

By Paul Palmer

The offensive juggernaut that is the Hall girls lacrosse team continued Wednesday with a 16-goal outburst again South Windsor.

Junior Lucy Gwiazdoski scored five  goals – including the 100th of her career – and Anya Leshem added five more for the Titans who moved to 3-0 on the season. The 16 goals on Wednesday are the lowest output of the season for Hall who had scored 17 in each of its first two games. “We have a lot of unselfish players that are willing to work for each other,” said head coach Kristen Mullady.

It took Gwiazdoski and Hall just :32 to score the game’s opening goal, this one from the 8-meter. Leshem scored the second of the game just under a minute later on a strong  solo effort. The junior took the ball and started to crash the South Windsor cage with a defender tightly guarding her. She darted inside, spun back outside of the player and fired home the goal.

Gwiazdoski got her second – again from the 8-meter – sandwiched by a pair from the Bobcats and it was a 3-2 game. After that it was Hall taking things over and going on a seven-goal run to put the game out of reach.

“We are a very young team with just one senior. I was not sure how we would do this year,” Mullady said of her team.

Gwiazdoski would score career goals 99 and 100 before the first quarter was over. The 100th came from a great shot in close and sent the junior player and her teammates into a celebration on the field and on the bench.

“It (100 goals) feels amazing,” she said. “I want to thank my teammates, all my coaches, and my family.”

She and Leshem make up a dangerous 1-2 offensive punch for the Titans, and on Gwiazdoski’s special day, Mullady praised her player. “She’s only a junior and is a captain. She leads on and off the field and just keeps getting better by the day,” her coach said.

Hall would pick up a sixth goal in the first with less than five seconds to play when Claire O’Donnell came off the wing and slid in front of the net with the ball and easily beat the South Windsor goalie.

On the opening draw of the second quarter, it was Leshem with another solo effort leading to a goal. After winning the draw, she carried the ball down the middle of the field and fired home Hall’s seventh goal of the day just :08 in. Leshem was dominant on the draw all day for Hall, helping them stay on offense and control the tempo and flow of the game.

Forty-seven seconds after the Leshem goal, it was Gwiazdoski again, this time cutting across the face of the goal and depositing the ball into the net. Leading 9-2, it was Leshem again, this time converting on a great pass from Teagan Cohane. The Titans had been working the ball around the top of the circle when Cohane saw Leshem cutting into the middle and fired a perfect pass into Leshem from the wing and it was 10-2.

After Lily Ficaro scored her second of the half for South Windsor, the Titans closed out the opening half scoring with a goal from Amalia Werkmesiter-Dana. It started with O’Donnell grabbing the loose ball and feeding to her teammate to switch Hall from defense to offense. The Titans worked the ball around before Werkmeister-Dana scored to end things at 11-3 at intermission.

“Our players are going out of their comfort zones in these early games,” Mullady said, crediting her captains for leading the way and building up the young players.

In the second half it was more of the same as the Titans would score four times after allowing Ficaro to open the scoring just 1:10 into the third. O’Donnell picked up two more goals and Leshem added another from the 8-meter arc to make it 13-4.

Nice passing led to the 14th goal for Hall as Leshem and Aliza Schleif worked a perfect goal with Leshem once again finding the back of the net. Ficaro would score once more for the Bobcats, picking up the ground ball and racing down the near sideline, past defenders, cutting into the middle and scoring her team’s fifth goal.

With each team substituting freely in the fourth quarter each side scored once – Sammy Shannon for Hall and Ficaro for South Windsor to  wrap up the scoring.

“This feels great, I’m hoping we keep it going all season,” Gwiazdoski said of the team’s unbeaten start. The margins in the wins have allowed Mullady to get all of her players into the games and get them valuable playing time. “It builds confidence. I tell the players that they cannot get better unless you are on the field.” she said.

Hall is now off for 12 days, most of it the school’s spring break, before returning on the 21st to face Rocky Hill.

Like what you see here? Click here to subscribe to We-Ha’s newsletter so you’ll always be in the know about what’s happening in West Hartford! Click the blue button below to become a supporter of We-Ha.com and our efforts to continue producing quality journalism.