Landry earns 100th win as Indians’ coach
By Steven Silverman, Correspondent, The Times
Unionville swarms on defense to protect their goal, during Tuesday night’s game against Downingtown East. Amy Berg photo.
EAST MARLBOROUGH — The Unionville varsity girls’ lacrosse team edged Downingtown East 10-9 in controversial fashion on a drizzly Tuesday night, picking up a milestone win for their coach in the process.
It was the 1o0th career victory for coach Wendy Landry, and it pushed the Indians to 12-5 overall with one game remaining in the regular season. Senior captain Annabeth Donovan dominated on offense, scoring six goals and assisting on two more.
The teams traded goals for most of the first half before the Cougars grabbed a 6-4 lead shortly before intermission. Unionville came out firing in the second half, though, ripping off four unanswered goals in the first five minutes—including one sophomore Emma Walter put in the net with Cougar goalie Haleigh Wurzel outside the fan after a foul.
Downingtown East knotted the score at 8-8 after pouncing on a rebound, only to see Donovan beat Wurzel after a lengthy Unionville possession.
The Indians won the subsequent draw and Donovan seemingly iced the game by completing the double hat trick with 35.5 seconds to go, but the Cougars scored with 11.9 seconds remaining to make things interesting.
Downingtown East won the draw and had possession of the ball when there was a stoppage with 1.4 seconds left on the clock. After a whistle by the referee, the clock was mistakenly restarted and ran out, prompting the officials to ask for the time to be put back on the clock.
A short dispute ensued, with the Cougar sideline claiming that there were 1.9 seconds left and the Unionville sideline (and home crowd) vehemently disagreeing. To complicate matters, there was difficulty resetting the rickety old scoreboard (due for replacement this summer) to 1.4 seconds: the best method was to set it at 2 seconds, run it down, and try to stop at the right time. After several attempts, the operator managed to reach 1.7 seconds, and both teams agreed to restart play. Downingtown East was unable to muster a shot, and the final buzzer sounded with the Indians in front 10-9.
Junior defender Charlotte Berg called it “the longest 1.4 seconds ever.”
Donovan added, “We’re really pretty good at keeping our intensity and focus, and I think the break worked to our advantage. Finna Lax!” [the unofficial team motto].
Freshman Hadley Mottola was solid in goal all game for the Indians, notching six saves overall and making several key second-half stops. Mottola has done an admirable job of filling in for regular starter Nikki Bonaduce, who is sidelined with a concussion.
The girls’ next game is Thursday at Great Valley.
