The Catawba Ridge boys’ and girls’ lacrosse teams swept their opponents in a doubleheader Thursday as both teams continue their hot streaks.
Catawba Ridge’s boys beat Wade Hampton 8-2 and the girls’ team beat Butler 15-4. The Copperheads boys’ team has won four straight matches and are now 6-4 on the season, while the girls’ team is 5-4 on the season and has won two straight matches.
The Catawba Ridge boys opened the doubleheader and was led by Landon Halpin’s hat trick. Wade Hampton scored first to open the game about 2:35 in the first quarter. The Copperheads came right back and started their scoring as they wouldn’t trail again.
Tyler Weiss started the scoring for Catawba Ridge with a goal at 5:08 in the first quarter. Halpin scored the first of his three goals about 35 seconds later to give the Copperheads the lead. Luke Peterson scored with about six seconds left in the first quarter to make it 3-1 Catawba Ridge.
The Copperheads rattled off three second quarter goals with two of them coming from Adam Christenberry and Halpin getting his second in the game as Catawba Ridge had a 6-1 halftime lead.
Halpin’s third goal of the game came in the third quarter and was the lone goal in the quarter. Both Wade Hampton and Catawba Ridge would add goals in the fourth quarter with Shane Phillips scoring for the Copperheads with about two minutes left in the game.
“Our defense has been phenomenal,” said Catawba Ridge head coach Mike Gambrill. “We have a four-game winning streak and it shows we are growing as a team.”
In the girl’s game, Catawba Ridge was led by Megan Mulchaey with five goals, as both Kiley McManemin and Alyssa Ramadanovic scored four goals each for the Copperheads.
Ramadanovic started the scoring off 12 seconds in the game for Catawba Ridge. McManemin added her first goal about a minute later and Mulchaey added her first of the night about 75 seconds later.
Catawba Ridge controlled the pace form the opening face off and quickly started to show their strength and pull away. A second goal came from Mulchaey just under 20 minutes in the first half and Ember Rosowski scored her lone goal of the game about three minutes later.
McManemin scored at 10:15 to make it 6-0, before Butler finally got on the board with about 5:30 left in the first half. McManemin would score another goal before the half to give herself a hat trick and Ramadanovic would score three goals in the final 3:15 of the first half to put the Copperheads up 10-1 at the break.
The second half was much of the same as Mulchaey and McManemin would trade goals for Catawba Ridge and Felicia Boland would add a goal for the Copperheads as well with about 19:30 left in the game. Catawba Ridge went up 15-1 with about 12 minutes left in the game and relaxed some on defense as Butler would add three goals to close the game out.
“Scarlett (Atkins) had a great game in goal for us,” said Copperheads’ head coach Patrick Gormley. “We are seeing improvement every day. When they get it, you can see the light bulb go off in their heads. They are getting spacing better and their passing is getting stronger.”
The Copperhead girls next take on South Meck Monday at 5:30 p.m., with the boys hosting Clover right afterwards for another Catawba Ridge doubleheader.
In other games…
The Nation Ford boys’ lacrosse team wrapped up the Region 3-5A title with a 14-6 win over Boiling Springs Thursday. The win put Nation Ford at 9-0 on the season and 5-0 in region play with one more region game left next week.
Nation Ford’s golf team split with Indian Land and Chester Thursday. The Falcons shot a 162, while Indian Land shot a 155 and Chester shot a 236. Nation Ford was led by a 37 from Ben Mills, a 41 from Colby McCaskill and a pair of 42s from TJ Miller and HK Sharpless.
Mac Banks: mac@fortmillprepsports.com, @fortprep
