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Sports

Inaugural Lakers Lacrosse Season Ends in Playoffs

No. 4-ranked Marian routs inexperienced girls varsity Lakers team on Wednesday night in the first round of Division 1 regionals.

TROY – There wasn’t a single Mustang left behind on Wednesday in the opening round of the girls lacrosse regionals at .

With the exception of its goalie, every single one of Marian’s 18 active players scored at least once in a 31-1 win over West Bloomfield.

“I’ve never had that happened before,” coach Jamie Francek said. “It was pretty cool, it was nice for everyone to get a chance,”

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It was a statement win for a team looking to avenge a close 12-11 lose to Brighton in the Division 1 semifinals last season.

Francek wasn’t on the sidelines for that he game — he coached the Mustangs from 2000-2003 and is back with the team this year — but he’s seen first hand on a daily basis how last year’s the playoff exit drove his team. Marian already has this year’s Catholic League championship under their belt, now they have one goal left.

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“It motivated us especially early in the season, our goal is to win a state championship, it definitely fires us up,” Francek said. “We know that one bad game and you go home, so (this win) is a good start.”

For West Bloomfield (2-8), just scoring a goal against the No. 4 ranked team in the state was a major achievement. It was the Lakers first year with a girls lacrosse program, with four seniors on the roster, and its goals were more modest this season.

“Our two goals were to learn and have fun, after that what can you do,” coach Jill Adamczyk said. “We scored a goal against a state winning team. This was our first year and I am proud of each and every girl. They each gave 110 percent. They have grown as players exponentially.”

Being such a young program, they knew it wasn’t going to be easy containing Marian’s high-powered offense.

The Mustangs (18-5-1) needed only 10 minutes and change to force a running clock at 10-0 with 14:55 left in the first half.

Going into halftime, Marian was up 18-1 with Megan Spagnuolo leading the way with all four of her goals before halftime. She also finished the game with two assists.

In the second half it was more of the same, but it was the Mustangs reserves having the success. Marian’s second string came into the game and worked the ball around the net with a lot of success. Seven different players came off the bench and scored.

Anna Thomas, who played goalie in the first half, came out of net and scored twice. Backup goalie Emily Allison was the only Mustang who didn’t score.

“I just wanted to see them not step down or not execute the plays,” Francek said. “We wanted to give everyone a chance who don’t normally play some game time and play people at different positions. That’s exactly what we did.”

Senior Isabelle Bishop scored three goals. KK Hennegham also had three goals and she had two assists. 

West Bloomfield’s lone goal came in the first half after the Marian went up 13-0. The Lakers won the ensuing faceoff and Rachael Harnish weaved her way up the field and scored at the 10:55 mark to make it 13-1.

The Mustangs advance to play Troy, the regional host, on May 30 at 7 p.m. The teams played last year in the first round with Marian advancing with a 16-5 win. The teams also played earlier this season and it was a much closer game with the Colts falling 7-5.

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