Sports
Beaumont Girls' Lacrosse Hangs on for 10-7 Win Over Beachwood
Blue Streaks' goalie shines despite five yellow cards and ejection on team
Beaumont jumped out to a 3-0 lead in just two minutes, but when yellow cards kept the team down three players most of the game, it needed some clutch saves from senior goalkeeper Sarah Malarik to hold off Beachwood 10-7. Malarik tallied a total of 16 saves on the day, many of them coming off of Bison free-shots due to fouls.
“She played a great game and saved a lot of balls for us,” Beaumont head coach Brien Shanahan said. “If they had gone in we would have been in deep trouble.”
Beaumont’s Lauren Olmstead struck within the first 40 seconds, 27 seconds later teammate Maeve Gallagher scored and Katie O’Grady followed suit 30 seconds after that.
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Beachwood called a timeout and Lindsay Silver answered a minute later. Silver notched her second goal of the day four minutes later and the Bison were within one.
“They needed to snap out of their slumber a little bit,” Beachwood head coach Jen Tramer said. “Sometimes teams come out so fast and it takes a little while to adjust, refocus on what they wanted to do.”
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Beaumont unleashed a scoring barrage over the rest of the half, outscoring the Bison 5-1 and taking an 8-2 lead into halftime. Two of those goals came within the last 16 seconds of the half.
Just when Beaumont seemingly had the game in hand, yellow cards started flying as the Blue Streaks tallied five cards over the next 12 minutes, two by O’Grady, who was ejected and will be suspended for the first round of the tournament next week. Beachwood closed the gap down to 9-6 with 8:51 to play, but Olmstead put the game out of reach, scoring her third goal with 4:51 left.
“(Holding onto the lead) was credit to our kids’ intelligence,” Shanahan said. “We basically tried to stall, being three down they could quadruple-team one of our players.”
Olmstead and O’Grady led Beaumont with three goals while Silver led Beachwood with three of her own. The Blue Streaks honored 10 seniors between games, including captains O’Grady and Olmstead along with goalie Malarik.
“It’s a credit to the seniors to want to win on this last game where it would be so easy to give up,” Shanahan said. “I’m glad on senior day we sent them off with a win.”
Beaumont begins tournament play at 5 p.m. Monday with a home showdown against Gilmour.