Reinhardt helps Tower Hill hold off Cape
DOVER -- The players for Tower Hill School have double bull's-eyes on their backs.
Not only are the Hillers the defending champions of the Delaware High School Girls Lacrosse Tournament, they are also the top seed in this year's tourney.
No matter, it just seems to give the Hillers more inspiration to try to live up to the hype.
Senior Heather Reinhardt scored four goals and added a pair of assists to help Tower Hill overcome No. 4 Cape Henlopen 13-9 in the semifinals at Wesley College's Wolverine Stadium on Wednesday night.
Tower Hill (15-1) will try to earn its fourth girls lacrosse title in the state championship game on Friday night when the Hillers meet St. Andrew's (13-4) at a site to be determined.
"We needed to come out strong because we knew it was going to be a tough game," Reinhardt said. "We beat [Cape] 13-12 in overtime the last time we played them so we knew we had to come out and be ready because usually we get pretty slow starts.
"We all really worked hard this season and we all really want this [championship] to share as a team, too."
The key moment for Tower Hill on Wednesday came when the Hillers scored the last three goals of the first half to take a 6-2 lead at the intermission.
Meghan Lyons, Caitlin VanSickle and Mary Hobbs all scored unanswered goals in the last 11:40 of the first half as the Hillers began to establish command.
"It helped give our kids confidence going into the halftime and then I think they settled a little bit after the halftime," Hillers coach Wiz Applegate said.
Cape Henlopen had trouble finishing off goals on several wide-open opportunities in the first half as it only managed to score twice in the opening 25 minutes. The Vikings had a 26-25 edge in shots on goal.
"That killed us in the first half," Cape coach Gretchen Wyshock said, of her team's poor shooting effort. "That definitely hurt us and I felt like our midfield pressure was not the best that we could do, either."
The Vikings didn't give up in the second half, attacking Tower Hill's net for seven goals.
The only problem was that every time Cape scored a goal, the Hillers responded with one of their own.
In fact, it happened on the Vikings' first four goals of the second half. That made it impossible for Cape to capture momentum and close the gap.
Lyons, Hobbs and Myra Trivellas each scored two goals for Tower Hill.
Allison Young, Brienna Faust and Liz Carpenter each scored two goals for Cape Henlopen (13-5).
Tower Hill 13, Cape Henlopen 9
Cape Henlopen 2 7 - 9
Tower Hill 6 7-13
Goals-CH: Young 2, Faust 2, Li. Carpenter 2, Flemming, Perry, Lingo; TH: Reinhardt 4, Lyons 2, My. Trivellas 2, Hobbs 2, Glick, VanSickle, Ianni. Assists-CH: Li. Carpenter 2, La. Carpenter; TH: Ma. Trivellas 3, Reinhardt 2, Ianni, Nielsen.
Shots-CH 26; TH 25. Saves-CH 11 (Redefer); TH 8 (Teruya).
Contact Mike Finney at 734-7945 or mfinney@delawareonline.com.Reprinted with permission of The News Journal
