Yesterday afternoon, the girls’ lacrosse team capped a dominant league season with a 17-4 win over Staten Island Academy to complete the first undefeated league run in team history. In their nine league wins, the potent Bear offense averaged 16.8 goals per game while a staunch defense allowed a scant 2.6 goals per game for a staggering 13.7 average margin of victory against familiar rivals.

In yesterday’s match-up, the Brook showed their poise as a physical Tiger defense made them work for everything early on. Alexis Savage found the top corner on an assist from Natalia Pagano to ring up the game’s first point at 21:48. The Bears added another at 20:02 when Mia Trama found the back of the net on a free position drive, but with less than 16 minutes in the half, the Brook still led by just 2-0. The refrain remained consistent: keep moving the ball, keep cutting, keep being patient. The Bears responded and slowly wore down the Tigers with their surgical execution.

Sydneyanna Giardini scored on spin move with 16:11 left, then added two more in the span of a minute with a pair of unassisted goals as the junior took over the middle part of the half. The Bears added three more scores over the final 6:50 as Pagano fed Savage and Trama for goals less than a minute apart and Giardini assisted Savage with just 18 seconds remaining. The Tigers were held off the board until 5:29 remained as Emily Berger stoned 15 first half shots. allowing the Bears to carry an 8-2 edge into the break.

The Bears notched the first two goals of the second half as Alexandra Puopolo and Savage pushed the advantage to 10-2. Staten Island moved within 3-10 at the 16:14 mark, but the Bears answered with five straight scores to trigger a running clock and put the game away. Yasmin Tinaz, Morgan Ruggieri, Giardini, Trama, and Pagano shared the wealth during a run that left the Brook ahead 15-3. Pagano and Giardini added the final two scores to cap the strong offensive performance.

Giardini (5G/ 1A), Savage (4G/ 2A), Trama (3G), Pagano (2G/ 3A), Tinaz (1G/ 1A), Puopolo (1G), and Ruggieri (1G) provided a multi-pronged attack that the Tigers had no answer for. Berger notched a season-high 21 saves behind the prolific defense of Nikki Carlo, Georgia Apazidis, Christy Eugene, and Tiffany Akinyoade that made life challenging for the Staten Island offense all afternoon.

The Bears are back in action tomorrow afternoon when they host Staten Island in the PSAA semifinals.

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