Golden Eagles fall to Irish in opener

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DUBLIN – Big Walnut girls lacrosse coach Steve Palmer is hoping that his team continues to do what it has done in each of the last two seasons, and three of its last four – improve on its win total.

But sophomore Ashleigh Rothe and host Dublin Scioto had different plans in the season opener Friday night.

Rothe scored four goals and assisted on another as the Irish built a 9-2 lead at the half on their way to a 14-6 victory over BW.

Rothe finished with five goals and three assists to lead the Irish, who led by as many as 10 late in the second half.

“Ashleigh Rothe has improved a lot over the past year,” Scioto coach Sarah Zink said. “She’s definitely a staple to our team.”

Palmer thought his team was its own worst enemy, though.

“We had 25 fouls – one with a yellow card,” he said. “That’s 25 possessions. I don’t know what our total turnovers were, but at halftime we had 14. That’s (extra) possessions that they don’t work for – they just get because we were sloppy.”

It wasn’t what Palmer envisioned for the opening game.

“That’s not anything Scioto was doing – that’s us doing it to ourselves,” he said. “That’s self-imploding. The bad news is that happened. The good news is those are correctable mistakes. Those things are things we can work on … things we can get better at.”

Still, not all was lost for the Eagles. Cassady Becker and Ashley Fisher scored two goals apiece and goalie Aubrey Logue had 12 saves, including a string of four in a two-minute stretch in the second half.

“(Logue) looked a little nervous in the first 8-12 minutes, but I thought she settled down,” Palmer said.

Becker had 51 goals last season to become the program’s all-time leading scorer. Her two Friday night give her 119 for her career.

Palmer hopes the addition of Fisher, a freshman, will take some of the focus off of Becker this season.

Parker Novak and Allie Long also tallied goals for the Eagles (0-1), who finished 7-11 last season after winning six games in 2018 and five games each in the previous two. Both played junior varsity last season.

“(There was) some encouraging stuff that we saw,” Palmer said. “I’m just a little dissatisfied with the fouls and the turnovers. That’s a huge margin right there when you put the two together.”

Avery Schwab had two goals and an assist, Tiffany Trinh had a pair of goals and Allie Vogel and Jessie Hartman each tallied a goal with a pair of assists for the Irish (1-0), who went 12-4 last year – posting the most wins in program history. It was just their second winning season in school history.

“The girls had been champing at the bits to get out and play,” Zink said. “We have a nice combination of kids that have played together for a while and it’s really starting to come together and mesh.”

Madison Berry and Karleigh Rothe each added a goal, Kiersten Jennings had a helper and Kim Martinez Torres had five saves in goal for Scioto.

“We have a lot of pieces already in place and we’re just (trying to) perfect things,” Zink said. “We’re just going to grow stronger as a team. The girls have put in the work in the offseason.”

Next up, BW travels to Delaware Hayes in a non-league contest Tuesday night at 7 p.m.

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By Michael Rich

For the Gazette

Follow Michael Rich on Twitter @mrichnotwealthy or contact him at [email protected].

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