Fort Mill’s Lydia Laney fires a shot during the Jackets game against Blythewood Monday night. Photos by Angela Holt.

By Jack Veltri

Correspondent

Losing has a tendency to leave a sour taste in everyone’s mouth, especially as the season goes on. In the Fort Mill girl’s lacrosse team’s case, it came at the pinnacle of last season.

With a chance to go to the 5A state championship, the Yellow Jackets lost 12-9 to Riverside. That was more than 10 months ago. 

Fort Mill head coach Kirsten Terry, who won a state title as a player with the Jackets in 2012, has tried her best to put last year behind her.

“New year, new us. Gotta take it one game at a time,” Terry said. 

Fast forward to present day, the team is focused on the here and now, proving that Monday night. 

Fort Mill won its season opener over Region 3-5A opponent Blythewood 15-4. It hasn’t lost a regular season game in region play in nearly six years, dating back to April 10, 2017. 

The Jackets got off to a fast start with a goal from Lydia Laney 28 seconds into the game. It was the first of four first half goals for the senior. 

“I expected nothing less of her,” Terry said.

From there, the team’s play took off. Fort Mill kept scoring goal after goal before Blythewood got one of its own nearly 10 minutes in. 

By the end of the first half, the Jackets were in complete control, leading 12-1. Emery Dove had a strong game in the net, continuously making the Bengals work for their goals. 

While the Jackets were ahead by plenty, their play slowly became sloppier in the second half.

Goals weren’t coming in bunches like they did in the first half. They only squeaked out three goals — coming from Grace Sandler, Katherine Parham and Indy Coston. 

“Catching and throwing was definitely not on our side and a lack of teamwork,” Terry said. 

Blythewood managed to sneak three shots past Dove in the final 13 minutes to lighten the deficit.

It’s early in the season and hard to tell how the season will play out, but Terry expects the team to play better in the second half. She said they need to work on “teamwork and hustle” moving forward. At the end of the day, though, a win is a win, and Terry knows that. 

“I think the good thing is that we have a deep bench,” she said. “I mean, we were able to get every girl in there. And we have five brand new girls to lacrosse and they did okay.”

Fort Mill will begin a four-game road trip starting with Charlotte Latin Wednesday afternoon. 

Fort Mill’s Taylor Wilcox looks to take a shot during Monday’s game at Bob Jones Stadium.