Heritage girls lacrosse team remains unbeaten in league

Heritage senior Addie Walker scores with a backhand shot during Thursday's game. (Photo by Rick Rowell)

By Paige Mendez, Correspondent

The Heritage High School girls lacrosse team continued its undefeated league winning streak with a 12-4 victory at home against Paloma Thursday night.

The Patriots (now 7-0 in league, 10-8 overall) started the game off with a goal from Ayssa Villaruel just past the 10-minute mark. Then five minutes later the Patriots followed with three more goals in under two minutes before Paloma’s Lacie Lomenick put the Wildcats’ first goal in the net just 11 seconds before the first quarter ended.

With a 4-1 score on the board, Heritage started into the second quarter with a decent cushion. But the Wildcats had two answering goals, one of those from Lomenick just eight seconds before the half, that brought the score to just a one-goal margin.

Heritage senior Savannah Reveles said she could tell there were some nerves from the younger teammates at that point but she took it upon herself to encourage the team past the bump in the road.

“I think they may have been a little nervous,” she said. “As a senior, though, I’ve got to let them know we’re doing good and uplift them and pick it up.”

In the third quarter, Heritage came out and picked it up within the first three minutes to widen that margin. In the rest of the third quarter, the Patriots erupted with seven more goals, including a smooth behind-the-back shot by sophomore Madison Sartori.

The fourth quarter brought one more goal for each team but the eight-goal lead the Patriots established was more than enough to score the victory.

Addie Walker, a senior who scored three goals for the Patriots in the game, said the win came from the team’s ability to play for each other.

“It was a blessing to perform like this on senior night, but it’s not me, it’s the team,” she said. “None of this is possible without the team encouraging and fighting for each other.”

Reveles also accounted for three of the goals, while the remaining six were contributed by four other players.

Head coach Michael Mattison said his team’s success comes from that widespread effort.

“On our team it’s not just one player doing really well, it’s a team effort,” he said. “Every night we have different girls stepping up. It’s a good mix and they’re a great group of girls.”

Heritage is only in its second year of a girls lacrosse program, which means, for many of the athletes, they’ve only had one full year of experience before this season. Mattison said this group of girls was one he hoped, from the beginning, would see this type of success.

“We won all four of the last four league games last year, so we knew there was a possibility of winning league this year,” he said. “But we knew there was going to also be increased competition -- especially with Paloma and Poly -- but we knew it was possible if we worked hard.”

Savannah Reveles scores one of her three goals for the Patriots. (Photo by Rick Rowell)

Addie Walker scores another goal during Heritage's 12-4 victory. (Photo by Rick Rowell)