Andrew Constant – Sports Writer

RIDGE – Like it did in the regular season, the Ridge High School girls lacrosse team limited the production of the talented Bridgewater-Raritan freshmen, this time en route to a third straight county title.

Behind the stellar play of senior Hannah Quigley and juniors Izzy Behrins and Devon Brown, top-seeded Ridge (15-3) defeated second-seeded Bridgewater-Raritan in a game of runs 13-10 Tuesday night on its home field for the Somerset County Tournament crown.

Quigley scored a game-high four goals and was named the game’s Most Valuable Player, but she said she didn’t focus on playing for individual stats, instead focusing on how she could help her team.

“I wanted us to win this game, but I was playing for my team, not for myself,” she said. “I played well tonight, but it was great to get this win and the MVP. We had a lot of confidence coming into this game and that helped us play well. This feels great.”

Ridge used a 6-0 run spanning the end of the first half and the beginning of the second half to turn a one-goal deficit into the advantage it wouldn’t relinquish en route to the title. Once the second half began, the Red Devils had better than 80 percent of the possession, basically taking Bridgewater-Raritan (16-5) out of its game.

“We talked at halftime about coming out and playing our game, and we did,” Quigley said. “We won the draw controls and we finished and were able to come out on top.”

The win is the sixth straight overall for Ridge since a loss to state power Oak Knoll on April 26, and the Red Devils have been victorious in eight of their last 10 contests dating back to early April.

Behrins added three goals and two assists and Brown registered one goal and three assists for the Red Devils, who received points from eight different players.

“We have a very balanced attack, so we don’t just give it to one girl and have her go to the goal,” Erickson said. “We’ve always thrived because we have a balanced attack. We have a lot of girls that could realistically score multiple goals in a game, so it’s hard to shut one of us down.”

Ridge had beaten Bridgewater-Raritan twice in the regular season – by scores of 8-7 and 20-11 – and did so largely by limiting the damage from freshman phenom Ally Mastroianni. The uber-talented freshman did record nine goals and three assists in those two prior contests, but six of those goals came in the latter contest that was a 12-5 Ridge advantage at halftime. Mastroianni, who came into the game with 135 points (88 goals, 47 assists), which were the fourth-highest total in the state, but finished with just one goal and two assists Tuesday night.

“My concern coming into the year was defense, because we graduated so much from last year, but I felt like our defense has been strong all year and we’ve done a great job of double-teaming and we stick-check well and we get the ball back a lot,” Erickson said. “We were able to prevent her from penetrating as much as she usually does.”

Bridgewater-Raritan was shut down in the second half, as it didn’t score until the 11:24 mark when Mastroianni finally converted. Both freshman Hannah Hollingsworth and junior Mackenzie Knouse finished with a hat trick for the Panthers, and freshman Kirsten Murphy chipped in two goals. Bridgewater-Raritan led 7-6 at the 6:23 mark of the first half, but Ridge’s 6-0 run put the game out of reach in the second half.

Having an experienced group of players, led by Quigley, Ridge leaned on prior games to fight back on Tuesday night.

“These kids have been playing together a long time, not just for these three years here, but since elementary school and they’re used to playing with each other,” Erickson said. “They’re used to being in competitive situations and they’re used to being under the pressure and it helps them in games like this.”

BERNARDS TWP. — Ever since she was a freshman, Avery Hatfield has had it in her mind that she wanted to reach the 100-career goal mark.

On Tuesday, Hatfield scored four times, the last the 100th of her career, in leading The Pingry School girls lacrosse team to a 17-2 victory over Rutgers Prep in the first round of the Somerset County Tournament.

The sixth-seeded Big Blue will take on third-seeded Hillsborough in Thursday’s quarterfinals.

Hatfield netted three goals in the first half as Pingry (5-11) built a 12-1 lead, but coming out of the half, she said she was well aware of how close she was to reaching the milestone.

“I knew I was that close and my team wouldn’t let me forget,” Hatfield said. “It was a nice feeling and it’s been something I have had in my head since I was a freshman and to be able to accomplish as a senior is great. Winning games makes days happier anyway, so to get my 100th goal in a game that we win and play really well in was very exciting.”

Four others scored at least two goals in helping Pingry earn a third matchup of the season against Hillsborough. Lexi Chang, Eliza Kielty, Megan O’Reilly and Meg Vreeland each scored twice and Annelise Kinney and Sydney Lieberman chipped in a goal and two assists apiece, to support Hatfield’s big day.

“It’s a nice celebration of her career at Pingry and all she’s contributed to our program. She’s been a leader and I was really happy to see her reach that milestone,” Pingry coach Carter Abbott said. “We’re very young and inexperienced, so it’s taken us a while for some of the younger players to find their roles and place on the team. Because we are so young, we’re still a team that’s getting better. At this point of the season, you don’t see that all that often. Most of the time, when you hit the postseason, you are who you are. You might get a great game out of effort, but you are what you are.”

The two games between Pingry and Hillsborough have each gone to overtime, with the Raiders winning each time by one goal – 8-7 and 9-8. But coming off of a game in which the Big Blue netted 17 goals and looked dominant on offense, the hopes are high to reverse that trend and advance to Saturday’s semifinals.

“We have to stay mentally tough in practice on Wednesday and then in the game on Thursday to beat them,” Hatfield said. “It’s been overtime the two times we’ve played them, so I think that if we work hard, and play smart, we’ll able to get the win.”

Abbott noted that her squad needs to shoot the ball better on Thursday to earn the win, especially after not shooting well enough, in her mind, in the two prior games against the Raiders.

“We haven’t shot well in either of the games against them this year and their goalie played great against us. We just need to handle their pressure too. We need to do a better job of handling that pressure in order to win,” Abbott said.

Matina Kakalis scored both goals for 11th-seeded Rutgers Prep, which dropped to 2-7.

Bridgewater-Raritan’s Ally Mastroianni scores against Montgomery on Thursday in Montgomery. Photo by: Jeff Granit

MONTGOMERY — The youth movement that has taken over the Bridgewater-Raritan High School girls lacrosse team was on full display Thursday afternoon against Montgomery.

Not only did the young Panthers come away with a 17-2 victory to move to 11-2 on the season, but freshmen scored 14 of the 17 goals, with phenom Ally Mastroianni leading the charge with five goals and four assists.

Teammate Hannah Hollingsworth added four goals and Kirsten Murphy chipped in three goals as Bridgewater-Raritan continued to learn on the fly and improve as a unit. Mastroianni, who entered play with a state-best 90 points (55 goals, 35 assists) scored three times from the free position arc and assisted on three straight goals and four of five in the second half, when the Panthers had eased off the jets. She said that playing with teammates she’s had since elementary school has helped the learning curve this season.

“It has really helped; everyone on the team is such a good help for us and they’re always encouraging and helping each other,” Mastroianni said. “Everyone is getting so much better, from the first practice to now, and I’ve noticed that we talk more and we’re all stepping up our game. We work super-hard in practice and in games as well and we’re just getting better every game and I see big things for us.”

The freshman class, with as many as six first-year players in the starting lineup from game-to-game, has been noteworthy all season long, but the young players stepped on the gas to turn a 3-1 game into an 11-1 one in just 11 minutes of game play, putting Montgomery (3-8) away.

“I think we’re becoming smarter and we’re becoming better under pressure. We’ve learned what the roles are on the field and we’re able to play off of one another; the girls know each other’s strengths and weaknesses now and that’s something that comes from having so many new players on the team,” Bridgewater-Raritan head coach Kathie DeBonis said.

Lindsay Alvarez and Emily Miller, both juniors, scored the other three Panthers’ goals, as eight different players recorded at least one point. Freshman goalie Ariel Weismann made five saves in the cage, showing off her skills against a Montgomery offense that came into play averaging 9.5 goals per contest.

Weismann, another one of those players that’s been on the same team as Mastroianni for years now, gave way to senior Gina Kim in the final moments, with the outcome no longer in doubt. But whether she finishes games or not, Mastroianni knows how far this group has come and she realizes that they’ll only continue to get better.

“I’ve been playing with these girls since we were all little and I knew we had so much potential and I knew that the older girls were good players as well and we would come together like we have,” she said.

Freshman Tori Bobal netted both Montgomery goals, bookending a 14-0 Bridgewater-Raritan run. Classmate Allyson Weakliem came up with six saves in the cage, thwarting the Panthers’ offense and preventing any further damage.

While its evident that the young Panthers have vast skill sets, DeBonis knows that she doesn’t need to be hard on them when a pass goes awry or an opportunity is missed in transition.

“I think the girls are harder on themselves than I am on them,” DeBonis said. “They want to do well and they want to please and it’s more intrinsic on them at this point.”

Voorhees’ Stephanie Linzer is guarded by Bernards’ Lauren Crane during the first half on Thursday in Bernards. Photo by: Jason Towlen

BERNARDS TWP. — With her team trailing for the first time since the opening moments of the game, Bernards High School girls lacrosse coach Jessica McGinn called timeout to settle her players down.

In the 10:59 that followed, the Mountaineers responded with a 4-0 run to erase a two-goal deficit and earn a 13-12 victory over Voorhees on Thursday.

Emma TenBarge and Tegan Warren each scored four goals, and Warren connected for two of hers during the four-goal run that started at the 13:16 mark of the second half and culminated nearly 11 minutes later.

“I would like to think it was something I said, but I don’t even remember what I told them,” said McGinn of the timeout. “It was just an amount of time that we needed to collect ourselves and be reminded how we should be playing at all times. We lose sight of it a little bit.”

After building a 12-10 lead, Voorhees — which was pesky all day long and refused to go away quietly — attempted one last comeback. The Vikings got it down to 13-12 and scooped up a loose ball and earned a free position shot with 32 seconds left on the stick of their most effective player on the day, Katie Koller.

But Koller’s shot found the webbing of goalie Payton Barta’s stick and not the back of the net and the Mountaineers were able to run out the remaining seconds for the victory.

“Payton always plays well and today was a little up-and-down for her,” McGinn said. “She missed some that we’ve been working on, but she came up big and made the saves that she needed to.”

Barta finished with seven saves, but none bigger than stoning Koller — who scored three goals and added three assists for Voorhees (5-3), which trailed 7-6 at halftime and led just twice in the game.

“We came out a little flat and we played well, but it was just some small things that we didn’t do well and Bernards is a very good team, so they capitalized on our mistakes,” Voorhees head coach Courtney Thibeault said.

Freshman Paige Petty scored two goals and added an assist and Grace Gillis and Andra Scaliti each chipped in goals for Bernards (7-2), to give it five different goal scorers on the day.

“It’s not just Emma and Tegan for us; they do a great job finishing, but the difference this year is that we have so many players creating plays, offensively and defensively, and that’s the difference,” McGinn said. “It’s great that we have players that can finish, but we have so many that contribute.”

Olivia DiRienz, Stephanie Linzer and Hannah Ryan each scored twice for Voorhees, which got nine saves from goalie Genevieve Schweikert.

But in the end, the draw controls were the difference, as Bernards controlled 14-26 and used the possession to tax the Voorhees defense.

“The draw was huge for us. It was the defense coming off the line that made the impact for us. We didn’t have the midfielders win every time, we have some very versatile, pro-active defenders that helped us today,” McGinn said.

Coming off a season in which it won just five games, the Bridgewater-Raritan High School girls lacrosse team has used a youth infusion to race out to a 7-1 record.

Led by freshman sensation Ally Mastroianni and a five-pack of classmate starters, the Panthers have already won more games in 2014, but head coach Kathie DeBonis knew what she was getting with this first-year class.

“I have been watching this group of young ladies since they were in fifth grade and I’ve seen them at camps and I knew they were a special group coming up,” DeBonis said. “We had high expectations for them and we have the speed and the size, but we’re developing the game sense and we’re still solidifying the confidence.”

Mastroianni has already scored 39 goals and added 28 assists for 67 points in the Panthers’ first eight games. DeBonis said that she was aware of Mastroianni’s skill from when she was younger, attending youth camps.

“We knew she was special back then, but now that she has this supporting cast around here, it was just a matter of time before she put it all together,” DeBonis said. “I think that a total level of talent that the freshmen have has raised the entire level of play of our program. Synergistically, I think all of these freshman have had a great affect on our program.”

The other contributing freshmen include Hannah Hollingsworth (18 goals, 14 assists), Julia Lytle, Kirsten Murphy, Melissa Hawkins, Addison Reilly and goalie Ariel Weismann (85 saves, 4.5 goals against per game).

Having these freshmen making such an impact has taken some of the playing time from the upperclassmen on the squad, but DeBonis, who has coached at Bridgewater-Raritan for 18 seasons, said that she’s always prided the players in the program on knowing what roles they need to play game in and game out.

“The sooner everyone can embrace their roles, the better the whole team will play,” she said. “Some games, we have upperclassmen being leading players, some days they take on more of a complimentary role. The junior class has been very receptive of the freshmen. They’re really looking out for them.”

The Panthers have a showdown with North Hunterdon on Thursday (4:30 p.m.), which should show the progress the young squad can do against a more-experienced Lions for the Skyland Conference’s top spot.

Unbeaten Watchung HIlls

One of the few unbeaten teams left in the state, Watchung Hills is putting the ball in the back of the net at a very high rate to begin its season. But the success of the Warriors (5-0) hasn’t surprised head coach Stephanie Linder one bit.

“I’m not surprised that we’re 5-0,” Linder said. “I know this week is going to be tough, but we have such a strong sophomore class and they’ve been dominant for us so far.”

Watchung Hills has scored 14.2 goals per game this season, with sophomore Lindsay Carroll (15 goals, nine assists) and sister Amanda, a junior (17 goals, seven assists) leading the way. But Linder hit on the play of her defense, which has held four of its five opponents to under 10 goals.

“I thought we’d take a big hit on defense after last season, with all of the graduation, but they’ve been doing such a great job,” Linder said. “Add in that we start three sophomore midfielders and it’s been great. I’m glad we’ve picked up right where we left off last year.

The Warriors will be tested this week, with games against undefeated Immaculata and 7-1 North Hunterdon.