San Marcos girls lacrosse suffered its first loss of the season in a 16-15 double-overtime thriller with Notre Dame on Tuesday in Sherman Oaks.
There were nine different lead changes throughout the matchup, but the Knights emerged with the win.
“We scheduled this game to face a good team on the road and put ourselves in a tough situation and face some adversity,” San Marcos head coach Paul Ramsey said. “We got that and almost pulled off the upset.”
The first quarter was a sign of things to come as Notre Dame built a 3-1 lead before San Marcos ripped off three unanswered goals to take a 4-3 advantage. The Knights scored to make it 4-4 heading into the second.
The Royals outscored Notre Dame 4-3 in another back-and-forth second quarter to take an 8-7 lead into halftime.
The Knights came out of the break and took a one-goal lead six minutes in, but goals from San Marcos’ Victoria Aldana and Clara Stump put the Royals back in front 11-9. Notre Dame punched right back to tie the game up at 12-12 heading into the fourth.
With the game tied 13-13, Notre Dame’s Alani Garcia scored to take a one-goal lead with minutes left in regulation. San Marcos’ Liv Plourde and Stump answered with goals of their own to take the lead at 15-14.
However, the Knights scored with 19 seconds on the clock to send the game into overtime with a 15-15 tie.
The first overtime period was full of strong defensive plays, including several big saves by San Marcos goalie Carly Grant.
After the two teams couldn’t score in the first overtime, the game transitioned into a second. The Royals had the first possession but came up empty, and Notre Dame responded with a goal from Garcia to clinch the 16-15 victory.
“We kept our cool most of this game and stayed composed under most of the pressure but there were times throughout the game we turned it over more than normal and that’s us still learning how to stick to our game plan and run our offense under that kind of pressure,” Ramsey said.
“But every time we made a mistake we fought to get the ball back and caused some damage for them too and it was punch for punch, so to speak. I’m really pleased with that aspect of the game even though we didn’t execute a few parts of our game plan at times.”
Liv Plourde led San Marcos with five goals while Aldana ended the game with two goals and seven assists.
The Royals (5-1) will take on Glendale on Saturday at 10:15 a.m. at Warkentin Stadium in the opener of the 24-team Gold Coast Invitational.