High school girls lacrosse: South Jefferson takes down Liverpool, 22-3

“Right now our best line of defense is our draw,” Williams said. “We’re doing a great job on the draw, whether it’s Paisley (Cook) or Chloe (Elmer) taking the draw, they have a great connection with their circle people and that’s built up over time and failure. Like what doesn’t work and what’s working.”

After blanking the Warriors in the second half and dominating on draws throughout, the Spartans improved to 11-2.

“It’s great to be able to play teams like these,” Spartans’ senior defender Reese Widrick said. “It’s definitely a good test to see where we’re at and what we need to work on collectively as a team.”

This also led to a balanced scoring effort as Savannah Hodges and Madelyn Barney each generated five goals, also tallying two and one assist, respectively. Cook scored four goals and Brooke Perry contributed three.

“I think we did well, we played well and worked together on both sides of the field and it showed,” Widrick said.

Paced by Cook, the Spartans won 24 of 27 draws, including securing the’s game’s first nine faceoffs in the opening half.

“When you meet your match against another team that has a great draw circle, that’s when you really find out if the skill set comes into play,” Williams said. “But we’ve been doing a great job on that, we take a lot of pride in that.”

Cook won 14 draws as South Jefferson scored the game’s first seven goals.

“I enjoy them a lot, it’s important for us to win them,” Cook said of taking draws. “Whatever I can do to help the team, I’ll help out.”

“She has a knack for it and she can identify when she should be going to herself and when she should be going to the circle,” Williams said. “And we talk about it all the time, once you step between the lines in a game, ... in those big games you’ve got to be able to make those adjustments within yourself and know your strengths and weaknesses and she does a great job of that.”

Also on the draw circle, Perry won three draws, and Sophia Watts and Elmer each secured two draws.

“I give a lot of credit to Paisley, draws are definitely one of the most important aspects of the game and she does great on the draw,” Widrick said.

Hodges scored three of the Spartans’ first five goals, and later Barney tallied four of her team’s last six goals in the first half as it cruised to a 14-3 halftime lead.

“And having a balanced skill set isn’t a bad thing, either,” Williams said. “Obviously with Hodges, she’s a scorer, we’re very happy to have that, but with the surrounding features of the other kids, they definitely complement her a lot. So if you’re going to focus on her, you’re going to have to guard a couple other threats as well and I think they do a great job of finding each other. And then our role players do a great job of keeping defenses occupied.”

Defensively, the Spartans have allowed only 67 goals through 11 games this season, and have yielded only double digits in goals once in a 14-10 loss to Section 5’s Victor.

“We definitely take a lot of pride in our defense and offense, really,” said Widrick, who also credits Elmer, Madison Pfleegor and Watts for contributing to the team’s defensive success. Junior goalie Anna Hobbs made six saves to post the win.

“The defensive end is always something you can work on collectively,” Williams said. “And we’re still not great at it, but we’re good enough to get by and learn from our mistakes every single game. Because team’s have different plans of attack and different areas of attack, whether it’s low or high and we have to be able to adjust to that.”

Mia Berthoff scored a pair of goals to pace Liverpool (5-8), which competes in the Salt City Athletic Conference of Syracuse.

The Spartans cruised to victory Saturday after downing General Brown, 23-1, on Thursday night to claim the program’s sixth consecutive Frontier League championship. South Jefferson has also won 58 straight league games, a streak that dates back to 2017.

“That’s really nice,” Cook said. “That really shows how we continue to do well and how we’ve grown together as a team.”

“We’ve had a couple injuries as well and we had one today where other players had to step into bigger roles and that says a lot about the kids,” Williams said. “They’ve been able to be versatile, we call it being a jackknife, being able to do a variety of things for us and we’re not skipping a beat, so it’s a testament to the kids.”

South Jefferson’s program also recognizes the value of scheduling a challenging nonleague schedule to help prepare the team for the postseason.

The Spartans, who will complete league play at Immaculate Heart Central on Wednesday, also has nonleague games remaining against Fayetteville-Manlius and Baldwinsville, with the latter winning the state championship last year in Class A.

South Jefferson’s only two losses this season have been in nonleague play to Cicero-North Syracuse and Victor, which won last year’s Class B state title.

“Playing these kind of teams is good for us as a team, I’m excited,” Cook added.

“I think we definitely have a lot of potential, but we still have to keep working hard in practice and just work on the little things so we can be even better as a team,” Widrick said.

South Jefferson, which competes in Class D, will likely have to face rival Skaneateles if it reaches a sectional final. In their past two Section 3 finals, the Spartans have been edged by the Lakers, both in one-goal margins, including an 8-7 outcome last year, though South Jefferson topped Skaneateles to win its first Section 3 title in 2018.

“We have to win games like this and we can, we work hard,” Williams said of the team’s nonleague slate. “When it comes down to the size of a school, it’s not a factor as far as just because they have more kids. We’re all playing the same amount of lacrosse all year. So it’s a matter of game time and scoring situations where you’ve got to be able to make in-game adjustments on the fly to win the championship or to win the big game, right? So that’s what we try to stress in order to be successful.”