Cardinal Gibbons pulls away from Charlotte Catholic, claims girls lacrosse state title
Both Cardinal Gibbons and Charlotte Catholic are used to competing for girls lacrosse titles, often against one another.
For the third time, the two teams met in the N.C. High School Athletic Association title game on Saturday at Koka Booth Stadium at WakeMed Soccer Park, and Cardinal Gibbons turned a halftime tie into a 13-9 victory for the Crusaders’ fifth title in program history and third against the Cougars.
Junior Gracie Mullahy took home most valuable player honors and led Gibbons with five points (three goals and two assists), as head coach Patricia Alexander’s team finished the year 19-2 and 2-0 against the Cougars. (Gibbons defeated Charlotte Catholic 17-10 in March.)
The Cougars, making their seventh title game appearance, were aiming for a third state championship, having most recently won the title in 2014. Charlotte Catholic finished the year 21-4. Senior Peyton Chadwick had three goals for the Cougars.
Both teams took turns looking dominant in the first half, as the Crusaders opened with two goals before Charlotte Catholic rattled off a 6-0 run. In doing so, the Cougars got good looks near the net with regularity, as Chadwick (three first-half goals) and sophomore Kate Daniels (two first-half goals) led the charge.
While getting good looks, Gibbons struggled to put shots on net and had a scoring drought of 14-plus minutes before getting back on track. Once they did, the Crusaders were hard to stop. Gibbons scored four times in a two-minute, 52-second span to make it 6-6, and nothing separated the two teams at halftime with the score at 7-7. Powering Gibbons offensively was senior Gracie Mullahy, who recorded a pair of goals and a pair of assists before the break.
The Crusaders continued their turnaround into the second half, as sophomores Isabelle Hammond and Charlotte Jackson gave Gibbons a 9-7 lead. But Charlotte Catholic offered a rebuttal of its own thanks to goals from junior Molly Baumgartz and senior Kate Draddy to tie the game at 9-9.
Sticking to the theme of both teams answering the other’s runs, Jackson and Mullahy gave Gibbons a two-goal advantage with just under eight minutes remaining, 11-9. But unlike on previous occasions, there wasn’t an immediate reply from Charlotte Catholic. Instead, the Crusaders were able to chew up clock and made Charlotte Catholic pay with goals by Hammond and Georgia Sobocinski to build their lead to four, their biggest of the game, at 13-9.
From that point on, Gibbons was able to comfortably see out the win.
