South County Colts Girls Lacrosse Dominant in 7th/8th Grade Divisions

By Alfred Balow

The South County youth girl’s lacrosse program continues to excel in the girls lacrosse divisions.  

Last year, the 7/8 B and 7/8 C teams (middle school divisions) played in the championship games of the NVYLL girls lacrosse B and C divisions. The 7/8 B team won their 2012 championship game in dramatic style scoring the winning goal in the closing seconds. The 7/8 C team played a strong game, but fell in their title game.  NVYLL consists of youth lacrosse programs from Arlington, Fairfax, Loudoun, Prince William, Stafford and Fauquier counties, plus the cities of Alexandria, Falls Church, Manassas and Fairfax.

This year both teams returned to the championship game of their division with undefeated records of 10-0 and both teams prevailed in convincing style.  The 7/8 B team had to beat back-to-back undefeated teams in the semi-final and the championship games to repeat as NVYLL champions.   In their championship game, the 7/8 B team beat a previously stingy Vienna team 13-6.  The Vienna team had only given up 23 goals during the entire regular season.  

The 7/8 B team finished once again as the highest scoring team in the B division by scoring an astounding 110 goals in the regular season and 25 more in the playoffs.  The team scoring was led by the dynamic scoring duo of Hannah Balow (34 G, 13 A) and Hannah Ross (23 G, 2 A).  Other players contributing with double digit goals included Abbie Glaser, Nicole Judd, and Emily Sullivan.  The mid-field was controlled by the great leadership and strong play of Kristin Rabil and Claire Quigley.  The team was well balanced with tenacious play across the field, evidenced by over 200 won ground balls during the course of the season.  Defensively, the goal was ably manned by Jessica Ross and stout defenders led by Diana Logue, Rachel Robinson and Jessica Mullany limited opposing offenses to averaging only 5 goals per game.

The 7/8 C team soundly beat the Fort Hunt 7/8 C team by the score of 13-4 in their championship game to complete a perfect season.  The 7/8 C team was also a very dynamic  scoring team this season with 117 goals in the regular season and adding 43 more goals in the playoffs.  The leading scorers for the 7/8 C team were AJ Vinger, Ashleigh Kern, Maddie Burcher and Gabby Salisbury.  The defense played well all year and was led by Carah Harvie, Joy Brookhart, Chloe Keefe, and Reilly Manske.  Backing up the defense was the strong goalie play of Kaylee Valenzia.