WOOSTER − Heading into the fourth quarter of Monday’s Division II lacrosse sectional final, Wooster girls held an 8-5 lead against Medina Highland.
Wooster head coach Holly Pope had this to say after the match regarding what was said to her team before the final quarter began.
“We’ve been using the analogy of our team being like a circuit. In order to be full power, we have to have strong connections. I thought some of our connections were too loose and we needed to clean that up, so we can generate that power again.”
Well, those connections Pope talked about got going in the fourth quarter because of Wooster’s sharp off-ball movement and their use of screens, as the Generals (10-7) took down Medina Highland (12-7) 14-6 to advance to the regional quarterfinals.
And we’re talking about constant utilization of screens for the Generals.
An attacking player makes a pass to a teammate at the top. Then moves closer to goal where she sets a screen for a teammate almost like a pin down screen in basketball. That teammate rolls off the screen like a curl. Catch, control and shoot. There was even a few times when a player set a double-screen for two players to come off of in the center area.
Wooster outscored Medina Highland 6-1 in the fourth quarter, with four of those goals coming off screen action.
“We really looked to spread out our offense a little bit to try and exploit the mismatches and be able to move off-ball,” Pope said. “Everytime we had the ball and spread out, they would yell, ‘Iso.’ That wasn’t really our goal but if they think it’s an iso [isolation] then they’re all looking at the ball. Then we know the off-ball looks would be open.”
The player that seem to feast off those off-ball screens in that quarter was midfielder Jay-Cee Hackett, who scored a game-high six goals, with three of those six goals coming in the fourth quarter.
“We kind of changed our play. We went from running almost like a fake iso to spreading out and allowing the drive to happen, then the backside slides came in more,” Hackett explained, who mentioned that Wooster’s attack is trying to be unpredictable and more spread out during the postseason. “Because we spread out, we allowed the slides to be longer, which helped with the iso that allowed a lot of cuts. We scored a lot on cuts.”
Also throughout, Wooster was able to draw a lot of fouls and had their fair amount of free position shots (an uncontested shot awarded in the 8-meter arc in the center after a major or minor foul is committed by the defense inside the penalty zone scoring area), that they converted on.
Going in, both Pope and Hackett expected it to play out that way.
“So we scouted them. We went to watch them last week and they had seven yellow cards in that game, so we knew they were a physical team,” said Pope, who mentioned her team was hungry to play their first match since May 8. “You have to trust the officials are going to make that call and we have to be smart on the ball.”
“It’s almost like knowing your personnel,” Hackett said. “If you know they’re going to foul you based off watching film, you want to take advantage of that. Knowing what girls might foul, you want to send iso through her in that matchup. Also, when we slide, seeing the slide and drawing the shooting space.”
Onto the regional quarterfinals for Wooster, where Pope is hoping to make a lengthy tournament run with this senior class.
“We haven’t had a good playoff run since 2021,” she said. “We’ve been talking about making it to the Sweet Sixteen. The senior class is really talented. They haven’t made it there, so that’s kind of been the goal.”
jamessimpson@gannett.com
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This article originally appeared on The Daily Record: Wooster girls defeated Medina Highland in OHSAA Div. II tournament