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Runnin' on Giusti; Stone Bridge takes Liberty
Those hundreds of draining wind sprints don't seem so evil anymore.
Stone Bridge girls lacrosse coach Kristin Howard believes in a strong conditioning program for her players, which quickly became imperative during Friday night's Liberty District championship.
After the second-seeded Woodson Cavaliers pushed out of a 2-5 hole to score six of nine goals to close the first half with an 8-8 tie, Howard simply explained to her team that “it was a whole new game.”
Top-seeded Stone Bridge's second game tasted pretty much like the first, while Woodson struggled to keep pace and the Bulldogs eventually left Madison High School with the district crown and a 14-11 win.
“The only time we don't like [coach Howard] is when we have to run sprints,” joked Stone Bridge sophomore Lauren Giusti, who finished with eight goals and three assists. “She runs us a lot, but it pays off. If we weren't in such good shape, we wouldn't have been able to start off the second half like it was a new game.”
After Woodson's Carrie Pritchard (5 goals) gave the Cavaliers a 9-8 lead to begin the second half, Giusti followed with her fifth and sixth tallies of the game to put Stone Bridge back on top, 10-9.
From there, the Bulldogs rattled off four straight goals -- two more from Giusti -- before Pritchard put an end to the Bulldogs' run with a little more than four minutes to play.
Woodson junior Lauren King added three goals and an assist, while senior Allison Cormier added a pair of goals. Still, Woodson -- playing without senior captain Meg Thaxton, who broke her arm during a game against Jefferson on April 17 -- was unable to muster much of anything offensively.
“We lost because we couldn't do the basics tonight,” said Woodson coach Jenn Wish, whose team dropped to 9-3 overall. “We were dropping balls, making bad passes, and if you can't do that kind of stuff ... you're not going to beat Stone Bridge.”
Giusti's eight-goal performance broke her own previous single-game scoring mark, which she set during the Bulldogs' 21-7 semifinal win over Madison. But as if that wasn't impressive enough, Giusti broke her older sister's single-season goal total of 60 from 2007, as the younger sibling now has 66 for 2008.
“She's just a great player. She's aggressive, she's fast and she uses it,” said Howard, whose team hold a 10-0 mark against Liberty District competition this season. “She's just an all-around talented player. She's so reliable. She just plays her game, and she had a game today.”
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