Girls lacrosse: Greeley rules on draw, beats Ursuline 11-8 to advance to Class B final

CHAPPAQUA — When the final horn sounded Tuesday night and Greeley players rushed to embrace their goalie and Ursuline players, perhaps with not quite the same pep, but, nevertheless, rushed to embrace theirs, the scoreboard told part of the story of No. 1-seed Greeley's Section 1 Class B semifinal playoff win over visiting No. 4 Ursuline.

Simply, the Quakers had outscored the Koalas 11-8.

But the numbers behind that score — the numbers that should have flashed in neon, given their importance and seeming improbability, were absent.

They were 19 and 2.

Nineteen being the number of balls off the draw that Greeley won and two the number Ursuline won.

It's hard to win when you don't have the ball and the fact the score was as close as it was — the game as competitive as it was — was a credit to young Ursuline's strong goalkeeping and its never-quit resolve.

What it means

Bur as important as those things are, they don't always win games.

And Tuesday's game, deservedly, went to Greeley, which used its draw dominance with a little over a minute remaining in the first half to change a 3-3 tie into a 6-3 advantage.

And despite making some second-half noise by Ursuline, which clawed back a little after getting down by five goals twice in the second half, Greeley's dominance on the draw and its ability to keep the ball lifted the Quakers to the championship game.

Greeley will take on No. 2-seed Yorktown in the Section 1 Class B title game Friday at 6:30 p.m. at Nyack High School with the winner advancing to state regional play in the hope of earning a Final 4 trip to SUNY-Cortland.

Player of the game

None of this might have occurred for the Quakers without sophomore Rowan Edson.

All 5-foot-1 of her — well, 5-1ish in cleats, anyway.

Multiple players had big games for the Quakers but no one had a bigger impact than Edson, who took Greeley's draws.

She was a force and this was no surprise to Ursuline, head coach Joe Frederick, who studied two tapes of Greeley games in an effort to figure out ways to beat Edson.

But, despite Ursuline's pre-planning and its changing things as the game went on, the outcome didn't change.

Edson, who also had four assists, ruled the circle, often winning the ball simply to herself.

Sometimes she went low, sometimes high (as when she skied to grab the ball after Ursuline's seventh goal) and sometimes she got it almost magically, like when it seemed Ursuline had it and a huge momentum push after cutting the score to 11-8 with 2:23 to play but suddenly the ball was in Edson's stick.

"We knew she was real strong on the ball. ... No matter what we threw at her, she's that good," Frederick said.

The playoff picture: See the seedings and schedule for the 2023 Section 1 tournament

Girls lacrosse playoff results: Yorktown, Greeley, John Jay-CR$, Rye advance to Section 1 final games

By the numbers

Of course, the rest of Greeley's team was pretty good, too.

Included was Erica Rosendorf, who, carrying that ball, killed nearly a minute from those last 2:23, running around and around the Ursuline net in huge circles, like a track star, until Ursuline defenseman Ava Snyder was finally able to hit her stick and force a turnover.

Rosendorf was the game's leading scorer, netting five goals. Included was her score halfway through the first half that tied things 2-2 after Zoe Ryan had scored to put the Koalas ahead.

On that goal, Rosendorf drove past tight, 1-on-1 coverage to get a step on her defender, then fired right-to-left for the goal.

And maybe more impressive was Rosendorf's goal that put Greeley up 11-5 with 13:49 to play. Using speed and agility, she dodged around three Ursuline players and absolutely smoked a shot into the net from in close.

Rosendorf also came up with a key draw, beating multiple Koalas, who had good chances of grabbing the ball, after the speedy Delaware-bound Maddy Mobilia scored one of her three goals to cut the Quaker lead to 11-6 with 7:10 left.

Taylor Rice also had a hat trick for Greeley. Bae Bounds scored twice (once off a nice stutter delay in which she used an Ursuline defender as a partial screen) and had an assist. Finley Pollard had one goal on a beautiful move in which she lost her defender and slid the ball in low, and Logan Skuro had an assist.

Ryan had three goals for Ursuline, junior Paige Moretti, a West Point commit, had two goals and an assist

Maeve Bruton and Abby Dold both had two assists and Teagan Hanrahan had one assist.

Goalie play was strong on both ends.

Cornell-bound Koala keeper Lucy Gomez, who was a quasi offensive weapon with a few long feeds up the field (one well over 50 yards) kept her squad in the game.

She had 15 stops, several on Rosendorf rifle shots and some off Greeley 8-meter tries.

Greeley goalie Tatum Walsh was officially credited with only five saves but some were both difficult and either Ursuline momentum-crushers or Greeley momentum-keepers.

One came with about a minute to play off an Ursuline 8-meter free try. Another came earlier on a Ryan 8-meter and another came when Walsh correctly read a pass off an 8-meter set-up.

They said it

Horace Greeley coach Maggie Sharp noted Edson was often able to get the ball to Bounds and Rosendorf on the draw when not winning it to herself.

"She's smart how she sets up. She works really well with Bae and Erica," she said.

Sharp liked not only her team's ball control but also its defensive effort.

"We were aggressive on defense today — more aggressive than we've been, and we took the momentum (that way)," she said.

Frederick called girls lacrosse a "game of runs" and noted Greeley's three-goal run to end the first half was big.

He liked the fact his team fought back in the second half despite its struggles on the draw.

He also liked Gomez's play, in part pointing to not only her stops but the fact when she had the ball, he had a "ton of confidence" she'd effectively get it up the field.

Gomez and Mobilia will graduate from a team that ended up 12-4-1 after going 5-8 last year and not winning a single league game.

"Everyone else will be back, which is good," Frederick said.

Greeley, now 15-3, will, of course, try to make that 16-3 Friday.

And Edson will, of course, try to remain dominant on the draw.

But she pointed to something else she thought was key in Tuesday's win.

"I think it was just our energy," she said. "Section (playoff) energy is like different. It's so fun."

Nancy Haggerty covers cross-country, track & field, field hockey, skiing, ice hockey, basketball, girls lacrosse and other sporting events for The Journal News/lohud. Follow her on Twitter at @HaggertyNancy.

This article originally appeared on Rockland/Westchester Journal News: Girls lacrosse: Greeley rules draw, tops Ursuline in Class A semifinal