It was another dominant performance for the Lady Mustangs lacrosse team on this breezy Wednesday night, this time hosting the Kettle Run Cougars with a regional championship on the line. Annie Moore opened the scoring only 27 seconds in, and Bella Paradiso added on a natural hat trick with three goals in quick succession, giving the home team a quick 4-0 lead. Paradiso would go on to score six times in tital and five in the first half, a half in which Meridian jumped out to a 15-2 advantage and scored nine times before the visitors found the back of the net at all.
Things settled down a bit after the intermission as scoring became much less frequent, and at the end of the evening, the final result was 21-3. In addition to Paradiso’s six pack, Annie Moore scored four times and Lila Deering, Maeve Dodge, Caroline Carmody, and Sydney Longer all tallied twice, while Julie Capozzi, Audrey DuBois, and Tillie Gale also got on the board. The Mustangs’ next game will be on Friday, June 3rd, in their own backyard once again with the opponent yet to be determined.
Across the field, the boys’ baseball team was in action for their regional quarterfinal game against visiting Skyline, and to say starting pitcher Jackson Pierce was locked in would be an understatement. He dealt a couple of scoreless innings before Meridian got on the board with a Troy Ehrlich hit in the bottom of the second, and kept up his impeccable form as he continued to pitch shutout baseball through the sixth inning. The Mustangs did themselves no more favors offensively, however, by also failing to score again, and it would prove to all come down to the final three outs. Pierce ended up pitching the entire game and the Meridian outfield helped him out by recording a double play, then coming up clutch to seal the 1-0 victory by trapping a Skyline runner between second and third base with the ball in play. They will continue their postseason campaign in the regional semifinals next Tuesday.
