Sacred Heart Prep comeback falls short

With a remarkable pace of play down the stretch, the Gators rallied back to force overtime, only to come up short. St. Ignatius (5-0 WBAL Foothill, 10-0 overall) rode nine goals from junior attacker Sophie Ghosh, including the game-winner in sudden death, to earn a 14-13 win at Sacred Heart Prep.

“We’re really proud of our team,” SHP’s first-year head coach Steph Sanders said. “They dug themselves out of a big hole, so that was quite the accomplishment and then to take them into overtime. ... Obviously it didn’t go the way we wished it had, but there were other things too.”

The biggest other thing was a controversy over faceoff specialist Olivia Abbott’s stick. In a scene that resembled George Brett’s infamous baseball imbroglio known as the Pine Tar Incident, Abbott was given a yellow card with 1:23 remaining in regulation that led to her ejection, and forced SHP to play a man down for two critical minutes.

The Gators (4-1, 9-1) had just closed the deficit to 13-12 on a goal by Kat Dykes. Then, lining up for the ensuing faceoff, the St. Ignatius sideline requested a stick check, contending the webbing on Abbott’s stick was too deep and therefore against regulation. Protocol during a stick check is for the referee to formally call timeout, with players immediately dropping their sticks so they cannot tighten the webbing.

However, the players never dropped their sticks. It wasn’t until Abbott was approached by the head referee that the junior simply handed her stick to the ref.

“The ref didn’t stop the clock until everyone had put their sticks down, which is normally what you do,” Sanders said. “And so my girls knew — had heard her say that a stick check was coming. And so the ref said that she pulled her strings and made her stick legal. So she carded her for conduct, which, technically, you can do whatever you want until the ref asks you to hand over your stick.

Not only did the Gators have to play a man down due to the yellow card, Abbott was also ejected for her second yellow card of the day. The penalty also nullified the faceoff, and awarded possession to St. Ignatius with a free position from midfield.

“It was a big call,” Sanders said. “We had to take a player off the field, which left us a man down for a while. I mean, it was a big deal. But that’s the way it happens sometimes.”

SHP overcame the personnel disadvantage and rallied to score the game-tying goal nonetheless.

With the Gators ramping up on defense, Dykes scooped up a ground ball with 1:02 to play and quickly set the offense in motion on a break. The junior found her footing just outside the 8-meter arc and blasted her seventh goal of the day to tie at 13-all.

“It was huge,” Dykes said. “I was so excited. I am just focused, immediately, next thing, next goal. The game’s not over.”

The game seemed like it was over much earlier, when St. Ignatius outscored SHP 6-1 in the second quarter.

The Wildcats won a string of draws and were in possession for much of the quarter. With the game tied 2-2 after the first, KK O’Keeffe, Sadie Ghali and Millie Bartlett each scored three straight to start the second. Coming off a timeout, Dykes broke the streak with a goal. Kaija Walcott got it back for the Wildcats just over a minute later, and Ghosh scored twice before halftime.

St. Ignatius then opened the second half with two quick goals to make it 10-3. Then the Gators answered.

“Lacrosse, they always call it the fastest game on two feet,” St. Ignatius head coach Mary Kate McDonough said. “With a team as talented as Sacred Heart, they’re going to come out swinging in the second half, and that they did.”

The Gators switched up their faceoff alignment, with Dykes taking over on the draw. The result was a spate of SHP possessions, and a 5-0 run to close it to 10-8 with 1:42 remaining in the third.

“We were losing the draw ... and we knew we had to make a change,” Sanders said. “So, we switched someone onto the draw circle to take the draw so [Abbott], we could use that speed on the circle. And it made a huge difference.”

Ghosh got one back for St. Ignatius at the end of the third quarter. After an SHP goal by sophomore Cate Hansen early in the fourth, the Gators won the ensuing draw, but Wildcats defender Isabella Gelbard quickly slowed their roll. The sophomore produced a caused turnover with a straight-up steal along the sideline, resulting in a break for Ghosh to score again to make it 12-9.

“We coach really good fundamental defense,” McDonough said. “So, it’s always fun to see the girls execute on that and to be able to come up big in big moments.”

Dykes and Ghosh traded goals make it 13-10. Then, after the Gators won the draw, St. Ignatius goalkeeper Sam Lundquist produced a clutch save on Nora Still’s attempt off the right side. SHP’s defense went into all-out pressure mode, though, and forced a turnover. Dykes followed with three straight goals to close out regulation.

“Seven goals is a large deficit, a big hole to dig yourselves out of,” Sanders said. “So, did I think it would go into overtime? No. But I was confident that we would get it a little bit closer.”

It did go to overtime, and the Gators won the opening draw. While setting up the offense, SHP got its 11th field player back 37 seconds into OT, with junior Livia Valentine running onto the field at the end of the two-minute penalty.

The Gators got one shot attempt, but it was denied by Lundquist.

“It would be lovely to have Olivia in the mix, but ultimately our girls got a goal a player down,” Sanders said. “So, that was amazing, and that’s really hard to do. So, at the end of the day it worked, besides not scoring when we wanted to score. It was OK, but it was a big adjustment.”

Phoebe Oliven got the ensuing ground ball to put St. Ignatius on the attack. The Wildcats earned a free possession in SHP territory, and set it up for Ghosh to cut across the middle, and the Stanford commit, playing two minutes up the road from her future college, delivered the game-winning score.

“She’s a star,” McDonough said. “Stanford’s lucky. They’re going to keep her around here. But Sophie has always been a silent assassin, and in big games she can always come up with big goals.”

The matchup is the first of two between St. Ignatius and SHP this season. The teams are scheduled to rematch May 2 in San Francisco on the final day of the regular season. The Wildcats have now won three straight over the Gators going back to last season, including in the Central Coast Section Division I finals.

“We’re proud of ourselves,” Dykes said. “We dug out of the hole. ... In the end, this is not the game that matters. We know what we’re focused on, we’re playing them in one month. The countdown starts.”