Girl Lacrosse Advances to County Final

The top seeded Hillsborough High School Girls Lacrosse team, lead by Gianna Minutillo’s five goals, beat the fifth seeded Bernards Mountaineers Thursday to advance to the Somerset County Finals. It is the Raiders first trip to the finals since 2008.

1st

2nd

Final

Bernards (16-3)

4

2

6

Hillsborough (16-2)

7

10

17

IN SHORT
Gianna Minutillo and her Raider teammates would not be denied a spot in the county lacrosse finals.

 The Raiders won the first three faceoffs of the game and converted each possession into a goal to open up a quick 3-0 lead only 2:18 into the game.

After opening up the quick lead a couple of offensive zone turnovers and lost faceoffs allowed the Mountaineers to get back into the game and tie the score at 3-all.

Early on the Raider defense had some trouble with the Mountaineers’ methodical offensive system as the Mountaineers were able to control the ball in the offensive zone for long stretches and get good scoring opportunities.  But after the Mountaineers scored their fourth goal to close to 5-4 the Raiders started to figure out their offensive strategy and the Raider defense stepped up their play constantly stopping the Mountaineers and creating turnovers to regain possession.

From that point on over the final 29 plus minutes the Raiders outscored the Mountaineers 12-2 turning what was a close game into a rout.

RAIDERS OF THE GAME

Gianna Minutillo - Lead the Raiders offense with five goals. She used a variety of speed and spinning  twisting moves to get free for quality shots on goal.

Kitty Dawson – Had 7 points on three goals and four assists. She opened and closed the scoring for the Raiders assisting on the first goal of the game and scoring the Raiders final two goals.

OTHER KEY PERFORMANCES

• Marissa Traina – Had 11 saves including six in the first half when the game was close. She made a number of key saves in the middle of the first period preventing the Mountaineers from taking a lead.
• Kristina Vangeli – Had three goals and got the Raiders going winning the opening faceoff on her own and scoring on Kitty Dawson’s first assist.

THEY SAID IT

“They were faceguarding me defensively so I needed to do a lot of dodging nd moving around to get open” - Gianna Minutillo

“You have all worked extremely hard the last two months and you’ve done all the work to get there [the county finals]” – Coach Beth Murrin talking to the team after the game

Next – Somerset County Championship game vs the winner of the Montgomery/Pingry siemi-final at Ridge Saturday 5/14 at 2:00 p.m.