Girls Lacrosse: Catonsville Pours on the Scoring Against Owings Mills

After falling 15-14 to Towson in heartbreaking fashion just yesterday, Catonsville was anxious to get the bitter taste out of its mouth.

Fortunately, with a Friday afternoon matchup against Owings Mills less than 24 hours later, the Comets didn’t have to wait very long to get back on the winning path.

Catonsville (3-1) netted 15 first half goals en route to a convincing 19-2 victory over the visiting Eagles (0-3).

Junior Rachel Schwaab led the way with four scores (all in the first half) and senior Caitlin Elliott, sophomore Deb Milani and freshman Brooke Stevens each added two for a Comets squad that had 13 different players tally goals on the afternoon.

“It’s nice to get them back on the field and get a little confidence back under their belt because I know they felt a little disappointed after yesterday’s loss,” Catonsville head coach Becky Clipp said following the game. “It was nice to get the goals in early, but we have to work on our shooting—we hit the goalie a lot.”

That goalie was Owings Mills’ Brianna Bull who, despite being under fire all game—the Comets took close to 40 shots—didn’t wilt under the heat, registering an impressive 14 saves on the game.

Making Bull’s performance even more notable, it was only her third game ever in goal.

Said Owings Mills assistant coach Andy Zelenka, “She has steadily improved in every game we’ve had so far.”

As a whole, the Eagles vastly improved in the second half, allowing only four goals while scoring on one of their own.

“We told the girls at halftime just disregard the score. Go out there and play your game and just take care of the ball,” Zelenka said. “Try and control things and if you get a chance to take a shot, take the shot and go out and play as best you can.”

Although the Eagles only got off five shots, they did connect for goals on two of them, both coming off of free position possessions from Jamie Westerman.  

However, Catonsville pumped in far too many scores early on for Owings Mills to have a chance of making it a game in the second half.

Schwaab opened the scoring just two minutes into the first half and the Comets would take a 3-0 lead when Milani netted back-to-back goals in about 30 seconds of game time. Milani’s second of the two came when the sophomore smoothly weaved in between defenders before connecting on the close-range shot.

Catonsville turned a five goal advantage into an 8-0 lead when sophomore Kendall Law, Schwaab and senior Kelli Beard scored consecutively in a span of 56 seconds.

Despite the margin of victory, Clipp still sees aspects of her team’s game that require fine tuning as the season presses on.

“We are working on our offense and just getting it more poised and more composed, not taking the first look every time, and our defense, trying to be more aggressive,” Clipp said. “We need to set the tempo on offense and on defense and not play to the other teams’.”

BOX  SCORE

Catonsville 19, Owings Mills 2

Goals: (C)- Schwaab 4, Milani 2, Stevens 2, Elliott 2, Sullivan, Law, Beard, Wallace, Flister, Felts, Woods, Hocheimer, Kendrick; (O)- Westerman 2.

Assists: (C)- Schwaab, Wallace, Powell.

Saves: (C)- Schmulowitz 3; (O)- Bull 14

Half: 15-1, Catonsville