Cocalico Stops Mountaineers

In the moments immediately after last Thursday’s double-digit loss to Lampeter- Strasburg, the Cocalico girls lacrosse varsity players and seventh-year coach Courtney Reinhold sat in a circle on the sidelines and had a long conversation.

“We really just talked about playing as a team,” Eagles senior defender Megan McLaughlin recalled. “Getting out on the field and having a positive mindset, not letting the last game carry into the next one.”

Playing for the first time since that discussion, Cocalico responded with a 15-7 Lancaster-Lebanon League win over rival Ephrata in chilly conditions at Talon Field on Monday night.

After an 0-2 start, Monday marked the first win of the season for an Eagles team that entered the year with holes to fill from last season’s L-L runner-up and District Three Class 2A semifinalist squad.

“It’s a good step for showing who we are and how we can play,” Cocalico sophomore attack Danika Sauder said.

Monday’s matchup was also the 17th annual Aevidum game. Aevidum is a student-led suicide prevention awareness group, with student groups at more than 500 schools across Pennsylvania and beyond. Cocalico and Ephrata raised about $500 for the nonprofit through purchasing and wearing specially designed Aevidum shirts before Monday’s game. Aevidum arose after the death of Cocalico student Philip Cardin on Nov. 7, 2003. Among the founding members of Aevidum was Cardin’s sister, Maggie Myers, who is now the fourth-year Ephrata girls lacrosse coach. On the Ephrata staff is Mary Beth Cardin, the siblings’ mother, who also served as the Eagles’ first girls lacrosse coach.

“I always love this game,” Reinhold said. “Maggie and I grew up together. Mary Beth gave me my first coaching job. … She was also my coach when I played here on the grass.”

Ephrata (2-1 league, 3-1 overall) entered Monday having won its first three games, worth noting for a long-struggling program that’s had no more than six wins in a single season through at least 2008. The visiting Mounts scored the game’s first goal Monday before Cocalico (1-1, 1-2) rattled off four in a row and later took a 7-3 advantage into intermission.

Ephrata senior Mallory Kline had a team-high three goals while also winning 14 of 24 draw controls. But the Mounts committed 16 giveaways.

“We have to get down and get ground balls,” Myers said. “I’m proud of my girls because they played to the end and Cocalico had to work for it.”

Seven Cocalico goals came on an assist, three of them in transition. Two others came on putback opportunities after an Ephrata save.

Seven Cocalico players scored, five of them with multiple scores, led by Sauder (five goals). A talkative Eagles defense was similarly impressive, with keeper Mariah Cooper making seven stops, fronted by defenders Megan McLaughlin, Jamie Sweigart and Rylee Kernaghan.

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