Girls lacrosse
Amherst girls sets the tone in home win over EA

Amherst zeroed in on what it needed to do and executed a 16-5 home win over East Aurora on Wednesday, April 18.

"Setting the tone was the focus," said Amherst coach Janet Battaglia. "East Aurora is a speedy and aggressive team that can explode at any minute. Our goals were to concentrate on possession and finishing as well as playing a disciplined defense throughout the game."

Coach Battaglia's vision started right off the opening draw. Kristin Scaringi controlled and passed ahead to Abbie Gowen who quickly hit Daisy Timlin streaking to the net. Timlin put a nice move on an East Aurora defender and scored.

A second and third goal followed in the next two minutes, Lily Timlin off a feed from Gowen, and Amy Simon, unassisted.

The defense, led by Meagan Hurley, Elana Korn, and Christine Domres, influenced East Aurora's shooters early in the game and Ellie Poleon came up with three big saves early on to put the momentum in Amherst's favor.

Janet's daughter, Jodi, scored three times in the last eight minutes of the first half to put the Lady Tigers ahead, 9-3, at halftime.

Coach Battaglia said her entire team contributed to the first half effort.

The second half started quickly for Amherst with Gowen making a nice drive to cage at the 22:44 mark to score the second of her four goals of the game. Scaringi scored 20 seconds later.

The Amherst defense held East Aurora scoreless until 12:01 left in the second half. The last goal of the game was scored by Katie Erbacher off a beautiful assist from Ali Medinic.

Gowen led Amherst with four goals and five assists. Jodi Battaglia finished with four goals. Daisy Timlin had three goals. Simon scored twice and assisted two other goals. Erbacher. Scaringi and Lily Timlin each scored a goal. Ellie Poleon played three-quarters of the game in net and had eight saves and allowed four goals. Erin Edson came in and had three saves and allowed one goal.

Amherst assistant coach Kristy Grossman lauded the low defenders with great play. Hurley and Korn were credited with four caused turnovers each and Domres had caused three turnovers and scooped up three ground balls.

Over the break, Amherst fell 11-7 to Section V's Fairport. Several members of the team went absent, either on spring vacations or college visits.

Jodi Battaglia scored three goals and an assist. Gowen scored three times and assisted two other goals.

"Defensively, we adjusted in the second half and played a better team defense using double teams and slides," said coach Battaglia. "Unfortunately, we had too many turnovers and played an uncharacteristically sloppy game."

Poleon made 12 saves.

Amherst (3-0, 4-2) plays at Williamsville South at 4:30 p.m. on Thursday, April 26, hosts Lancaster at 5 p.m. on Friday, April 27. They played Eden on Tuesday, April 24 but results were unavailable before The Bee went to press. An important league game coming up for Amherst happens at 7 p.m., Monday, April 30 when the Lady Tigers face Williamsville East, who is also undefeated in ECIC Division III.