Fort Mill’s Lydia Laney looks to move around a JL Mann defender during the Jackets match Monday evening at Bob Jones Stadium.

Missed groundballs and turnovers led to missed opportunities for the Fort Mill Yellow Jackets in the Upper State Championship at Bob Jones Stadium against the JL Mann Patriots.

The Lady Jackets lacrosse team lost 10-7 to the Patriots who advance to the 5A state championship Saturday, April 29 at Irmo High School.

Fort Mill had a dozen turnovers and struggled to keep pace with the Patriots as JL Mann got off to a good start.

“We preached we got to take care of the ball,” said Fort Mill head coach Kirsten Terry. “It caught up to us.”

The Jackets opened the match scoring the first goal as Grace Sandler scored the first of her two goals about eight minutes into the match.

JL Mann the proceeded to rattle off the next three goals to take the lead. Fort Mill battled back as Lydia Laney scored the first of her two goals with about eight minutes left in the first half to pull the Jackets to within one. Laney, a senior, finishes her career with 204 career goals, a school record for both the boys and girls programs.

The two teams would trade goals one more time before the half as the Patriots took a 4-3 lead into the locker room.

Laney tied the match to open the second half, but then JL Mann scored twice to start the process of pulling away.

Fort Mill got consecutive goals from Cameron Hitch to tie the match at 6-6 with about 13 minutes left. It would be the last push the Jackets would make.

JL Mann scored four consecutive goals to go up 10-6, before Hitch collected a hat trick for Fort Mill scoring with about 64 seconds left in the match.

Terry said despite the loss, she was proud of the team as they exceeded her expectations this season.

“This year’s team was really special,” she said. “It’s not the way we wanted to end, but this team was amazing.”

Fort Mill finished the season at 11-8 overall.

April 24 Roundup

Catawba Ridge

The Catawba Ridge baseball team beat Naton Ford 12-3 to improve to 20-4 overall on the season. The two teams are scheduled to play again on Friday, April 28. Nation Ford falls to 13-11 overall on the season. The Copperheads were led by Owen Noonan, who went 4-5 with three RBI and Ben Wilson, who went 3-4 with three RBI. Sam Schwamb went 2-2 and Jackson Mullen got the win going six innings and allowing two runs on six hits while walking four and striking out six. Nation Ford was led by Paul Solari and Jackson Childs, who both went 2-4 at the plate.

The Catawba Ridge golf team finished second at the Swampfox Invitational shooting a 317 as a team. OT Mitchell led with a 73 and made the All-Tournament team. Hunter Warran was behind him with a 74 and Killian Kirby had an 80. Drew White finished with a 90. North Augusta won the event with a 285 as a team. There were 12 teams in the tournament at Legend Oaks Golf Club in Summerville.

Nation Ford

The Nation Ford softball team beat Blythewood 2-0 as Kailey Alston pitched a complete game one-hitter striking out six in the win. Nation Ford got six hits and was led by Emma Skovran and Alaina Holyfield as each went 2-3 and Holyfield drove in both runs. The Falcons are now 6-3 in Region 3-5A and 8-8 overall.

The Nation Ford girls’ soccer team beat Northwestern 10-1. They improved to 10-9 overall.

Fort Mill

The Fort Mill baseball team lost on the road to Brookland-Cayce 5-4 on a walk-off single in the bottom of the seventh inning. The loss drops Fort Mill to 12-12 overall this season.

Mac Banks: mac@fortmillprepsports.com, @fortprep

Grace Sandler runs down field for Fort Mill.