The Upper Perk girls lacrosse team rode the goaltending of Alyse Thompson

and an efficient second-half defensive effort to an 11-6 Pioneer Athletic Conference win over Pottsgrove last Friday at Upper Perk.

            Hope Flack and Courtney Bauer scored four goals apiece for the Tribe (2-0, 2-1) to pace the offense past a pesky Falcon squad.

            Upper Perk played an uneven first half as both teams spent considerable chunks of time in the offensive zones. The visitors controlled the early play and took a 1-0 lead thanks to Sydney Tornetta's goal less than three minutes into the game.

            Goalie Thompson was forced to come up with a spectacular save a couple of minutes later as Pottsgrove continued to pressure.

            "I was thinking, 'Wow, I really need to stop this,'" Thompson related after the game.

            The Tribe flipped the field shortly after Thompson's clutch stop and blitzed the Falcons for four goals in a three-minute span.

            Bauer began the onslaught with a low shot past Falcon netminder Mya Krueger, and 49 seconds later, Liz Fox intercepted a pass and fed Erika Boyer for the go-ahead goal.

            Forty-two seconds after Boyer's goal, Hope Flack circled the net until the defense parted in front of Krueger, and the senior forward cashed in to make it 3-1.

It was Fox's turn 90 seconds later when she came out from behind the goal and found net with a perfectly placed high shot.

"I'm slowly becoming more accustomed to being aggressive and going towards the goal more," said Fox.

The Falcons, however, refused to go away and tilted the field in their favor.

Alyssa Petrucelli scored the first of her two goals just 39 seconds after Fox' goal and almost had another, but Thompson made another tough save.

But when Emily Williams made a pinpoint pass to Brooke Saylor, alone in front of the goal, Saylor flicked the ball past Thompson to bring the Falcons within one at 4-3.

UP coach Sue Flack called a timeout, but Pottsgrove continued to test Thompson who was forced to make two more difficult stops.

While the Upper Perk defense was struggling with coverage and spacing, they were, at least, limiting the Falcons to one shot at a time.

"They're really good about getting the ball out once I save the ball," Thompson said.

The Tribe reclaimed offensive momentum, and two goals by Bauer and one by Flack, in a space of 87 seconds, gave the Tribe breathing room again at 7-3.

Williams and Flack traded goals before the half and Upper Perk took an 8-4 lead into intermission.

UP's Bella Carpenter and Pottsgrove's Petrucelli scored early in the second half and goals by Flack and Bauer negated a meaningless tally by Pottsgrove's Allie Reppert with 15 seconds left in the contest.

"We were a little rough toward the beginning," Liz Fox noted, "but we definitely came together at halftime. We fixed some of the things that we really needed to work on."

Fox saw improvement in the way the team transitioned from defense to attack and "being smart about our passing."

Coach Flack noted the youth on defense, it is the team's most inexperienced group, but the coach is happy with the way things are progressing in front of the goal. "Defensively, they're really starting to show me a lot."

Despite the testing weather conditions and the sometimes sloppy play, the outcome created a positive vibe for the players.

"I'm proud of how we played today and how we came together," Fox said afterward.

Thompson was even more enthusiastic.

"The Upper Perk lacrosse team is going to destroy this year," she proclaimed.