Souhegan girls lacrosse beats Exeter to return to D1 final

MANCHESTER – Meaghan Allard was a little nervous going into her first girls lacrosse semifinal game Saturday night.

Fortunately for the Souhegan High School freshman goalie, there were a few seniors with playoff experience there to settle those nerves, and Allard returned the favor.

The Sabers goalie made several big saves early in the game and the offense did the rest, as No. 1 Souhegan rolled past No. 4 Exeter 17-3 at Southern New Hampshire University. The win sets up a rematch of last year’s championship game, as No. 2 Pinkerton held off No. 6 Salem 18-10 in the other semifinal.

The Sabers and Astros – who won last year’s title – will meet at 5 p.m. Tuesday at SNHU.

“They all played well,” Souhegan coach Maren Petropulos said. “We talked about playing like a team and we did. (Allard) really settled in and did her job. We were a little sloppy at times, so we need to clean some of that up before we play Pinkerton. They will capitalize on those errors.”

Souhegan (18-2) got five goals and four assists from Madison Learned while Mickenzie Larivee and Jocelyn Donohue added four goals apiece, while Allard made 13 saves in goal and the Sabers held Exeter (13-7) scoreless for the final 29-plus minutes of the game.

“I was kind of nervous, but our seniors really help us out and make sure we’re calm,” Allard said. “They said that we’ve done this before, we can do it again. They made sure we’re really calm and it worked really well. We knew who their main scorers were, so we made sure we had them covered. Our defense was amazing.”

The Blue Hawks went into the game with the plan of drawing out possessions and converting them.

“We wanted to be able to get the ball on the draw and convert our possessions,” Courtney Preneta said. “When we had defensive stops, we wanted to do something with it. We didn’t do any of that.”

Exeter got two goals from Kelly Moran and Kristina Keith also scored, as the Blue Hawks fell behind 4-0 early. They were able cut Souhegan’s lead to 6-3 with 4:37 to go in the first half, but the Sabers scored three more goals before halftime and continued to pile them on in the second half.

Both Souhegan and Pinkerton will be making their sixth trip to the final, and both teams are 2-3 in championship games. Last year was the first time the two teams met for the title.