Warriors gain entry with lopsided victories over Bedford, Wilmington

KELSEY CZARNOTA, a sophomore, netted six goals and assisted on four in Wakefield’s 18-5 rout over Bedford yesterday afternoon at Landrigan Field. The Warriors clinched a state tournament berth with the victory. (Donna Larsson File Photo)

KELSEY CZARNOTA, a sophomore, netted six goals and assisted on four in Wakefield’s 18-5 rout over Bedford yesterday afternoon at Landrigan Field. The Warriors clinched a state tournament berth with the victory. (Donna Larsson File Photo)

By DAN BYRNE

WAKEFIELD — The Wakefield Memorial High School varsity girls’ lacrosse team has clinched a spot in the state tournament notching its ninth win of the season on Monday with an 18-5 slaughter of Bedford at Landrigan Field.

The non-league victory came after the Warriors crushed Wilmington by a 16-2 score on Friday afternoon at the Shawsheen School Field. That improved their record to 9-6 overall for the season and Wakefield is in the state tournament as a result.

Warrior head coach Cara Luca was proud of her team following the decisive victory.

“With this win we’re 9-6 so we’re in,” Luca said. “I’m really proud of all my players. This was a total team effort to get the win. (The) Defense was great today, (the) offense was great. We’re becoming more confident.”

The Warriors were well aware before the game what a win would mean for the team and they took that boost in motivation and ran away with the game.

“After the game against Wilmington where we won 16-2, I said we have to bring it into today’s game,” Coach Luca said. “I said if we want to make the tournament we have to win today.”

Right from the start Wakefield took the play to its opponent, whom the Warriors defeated 16-11 on April 2 in Bedford.

“What we told the girls was we need to come out strong,” said Coach Luca.

The Warriors grabbed the upper hand early and often, scoring quickly then winning face-offs to possess the ball.

“We need to keep scoring, quick passes and that’s what they were doing,” Luca said after the game.

Offensively the Warriors were led by sophomore center Kelsey Czarnota. Czarnota was dominant at the face-off X, controlling nine draws on her own, while Bedford managed just seven controlled draws as a team. Not only was Czarnota responsible for winning nearly every face-off but she also led the team in scoring accounting for six goals and four assists on the day.

Bedford managed to create very little on offense but the opportunities that did arrive provided the Warrior defense with a chance to test their ability.

Defensively Wakefield limited Bedford’s scoring capabilities with tight, intense coverage leaving little room for the player carrying the ball to breathe, let alone pass or shoot.

When Bedford finally found room to shoot another obstacle stood in their way. Junior goalie Mikayala White had an impressive performance in net for the Warriors, recording eight saves while allowing just three first half and two second half goals.

“Mikayala was great, especially in the first half,” Coach Luca said.

As coach Luca said, it was a total team win. After an impressive first half saw the Warriors bring a 10-3 lead out to start the second half, the strategy became to try and run the lead out to 10 goals, eliminating the clock from stopping the rest of the game.

“We had a huge lead in the beginning,” Luca said, “Our goal was to get it to 10 so then we could just move the ball around.”

It wasn’t long before Wakefield was on the brink of a 10 goal lead, as its popped in two goals in the first minute of play in the second half.

Less than a minute later the Warriors led 13-3 following Jessica Vinciguerra’s second goal of the day. She finished with three.

Wakefield also had multi-goal games from Julianne Bourque, Julia Brown, Emily Ryan and Isa Cusack who each scored two goals.

Erin Murphy had one goal scored to account for the 18 total goals for the Warriors.

Last Friday against Wilmington, Wakefield won in similar fashion to get within a game.

“We outplayed Wilmington. Offensively we moved the ball well and defensively we communicated and played great defense,” said Luca.

At 9-6 with three games left, the Warriors face some tough competition to finish the regular season.

Later this week the team will play Melrose and Burlington on Wednesday and Thursday and finish up the regular season with Stoneham on Monday.

Wakefield will be looking to secure three wins from its final three games to help improve their chances of landing a higher seed in the tournament. The tournament seeding will take place on May 29.

“We have three more games and we want to win all of them to get a higher seed,” said Luca.