For the first time in school history, the Cinnaminson girls lacrosse team has won back-to-back divisional championships.
This comes after placing second in the division in both the 2021 and 2022 seasons. Last season, the team secured the title in a satisfying 8-3 victory at home against Northern Burlington. Having dominated the division, the girls had gone 7-0 in the BCSL and scored 89 more goals than they conceded. Defending this title was one of the team’s goals coming into this season.
Head Coach Laura Curran explains how the team has been set on winning the division two years in a row.
“We wanted to be the first team in the school’s history to win back-to-back division championships, so that has always been what we’ve been working towards,” Curran said.
The girls had a strong start to the season and kept this pace as they looked to reclaim their throne on top of the division. In their first two games of the season, they defeated Delran and Maple Shade. Junior Megan Nelson explains that from the beginning of the season repeating their victory in the BCSL division was their main goal.
“Everything we did in practices, games, and scrimmages was for that,” Nelson said.
The Cinnaminson girls lacrosse team has continued their success on the field and after winning the division last year they are looking to win again. The girls placed second in the division in the 2021 and 2022 seasons, but last year were finally able to secure a top spot in the league. Dominating the division, the girls went 7-0 in the BCSL scoring 89 more goals than they conceded. Finally, they brought home the title last year after defeating Northern Burlington at home in a satisfying 8-3 victory.
In their division championship game against Northern Burlington, the girls defeated the Greyhounds in a thrilling 14-13 win. Nelson led the scoring with an impressive nine-goal performance. Senior Mady Hubbard contributed two goals and juniors Ava Sztenderowicz, Eva Barbich, and Suri Horner each scored one goal. This win secured them their first-place spot for the second year in a row.
The team’s offense has been extremely dominant as Nelson leads the team in points for her second year straight. The girls have scored 181 goals so far this season and have only conceded 92 goals showing just how much they have been outscoring their opponents.
Senior Mady Hubbard credits their success to how well the team works together.
“Our overall communication on the field has been great,” Hubbard said.
The girls have been working every day to improve and pushing each other to the best of their abilities.
Hubbard explains that opposing teams naturally want revenge after Cinnaminson swept the division title last season.
“We’ve definitely realized that teams are trying to get us and that we are the best in the division,” Hubbard said.
Overall, the entire team has been improving. The offense has been dominant, beating every team in their division by 10 or more goals at least once. Nelson leads the team with 54 goals and also 74 points. She has also been dominant on the draw with 84 draw controls while she and Sztenderowicz are tied in assists with 20.
The team’s defense has also performed well this year. Hubbard credits their wins to their defense and fast breaks.
“Our defense has been doing really well, our transitions up the field have also been successful,” Hubbard said.
Sztenderowicz with 30 forced turnovers leads the team in takeaways. In Thursday’s game against Bishop Eustace, Sztenderowicz joined the 100 club in three separate categories: career points, forced turnovers, and draw controls.
In her first year in net, junior goalie Grace Gonzalez has been good with 60 saves in her 13 games.
Nelson is impressed by how strong Gonzalez has been despite only playing for a short amount of time.
“It’s only her second year playing, first year on varsity and she’s been playing great,” Nelson said.
After achieving their goal of winning the division title, the Lady Pirates’ next target is the playoffs. With an impressive 10-3 record playoffs are almost guaranteed. Coach Curran is looking forward to this and is grateful for their tough schedule.
“Playing these teams later in the season will challenge us to be at our very best heading into the playoffs,” Curran said. “We are constantly reminding ourselves to challenge each other at practice too and always go 100% so that our attack and defense will be ready to see some tough competition and we can hopefully head further into the playoffs this season.”
As the girls continue their record season, go out and show support as they play Haddon Heights at home at 5:00 p.m. on Monday.
