La Cañada High girls’ lacrosse defeats Glendale in sudden death

LA CAÑADA — Christine Noh was in a state of shock in sudden death.

The La Cañada High girls’ lacrosse player had spent more than two hours competing Tuesday afternoon in a Rio Hondo League match against visiting Glendale. With the contest on the line and the ball in the webbing of her strick, Noh capped the exhausting battle with some heroics.

PHOTOS: La Cañada vs. Glendale girls’ lacrosse

Noh followed up her shot and scored the winning goal nearly three minutes into sudden-death overtime to give La Cañada a 15-14 victory.

“I was shocked the ball came right back to me,” said Noh, a sophomore who finished with four goals to help the Spartans improve to 2-5, 2-1 in league. “I thought [Glendale goalkeeper Jenina Villabroza] caught my original shot and then cleared it.

“The ball came off the side of the net and I was able to scoop it up and score. It all happened pretty fast. It’s overtime and I wanted to go full out.”

The Spartans also got big efforts from Paige Milne and Tiffany Chen. Milne and Chen finished with seven and four goals, respectively, to help the Spartans topple the Nitros (1-8, 0-2) in the first of two head-to-head matchups.

Glendale, which lost its seventh match in a row since recording a 9-7 nonleague home win against Beverly Hills on Feb. 27, sent the game into a pair of three-minute overtime sessions, when Elibeth Torres knotted it at 12 with 15 seconds remaining in regulation time.

Milne scored to give the Spartans a 13-12 lead with 1:49 left in the first overtime before Lymayre Aguilar tied it at 13 with 24 seconds to go. In the second overtime, Noh made it 14-13 with 1:46 remaining. Glendale’s Ariella Ruiz evened things up with seven seconds to go before Noh tallied the match-winning goal at the 2:51 mark of sudden death.

“It was a very intense game and that’s the way we like it,” La Cañada Coach Kyle Smith said. “We need a little intensity with everything we do.

“Christine is one of those players who is good at getting the ball. She’s always out there looking for it without being told. She stayed with it and scored a big goal.”

Glendale held an 8-5 halftime advantage and took a 9-5 lead on a goal by Roselynn Pedroza with 23:48 left in regulation.

Glendale Coach Joe Campbell, who guided the Nitros to the second round of the CIF Southern Section Northern Division playoffs last season, said the Nitros have suffered several close defeats this season.

“We’ve had some tough losses, but you want every game to make you better and that’s what we are going to do,” said Campbell, who got three goals from Claire Bernardo and two apiece from Torres, Aguilar, Ahuixchel Engelman-Lopez and Ruiz. “It was an exciting game against two teams who were pretty even.

“They have a much older team than us. We are going to continue to work real hard.”

Glendale also got one goal each from Marina Percastegui, Denise Guerrero and Pedroza.

La Cañada goalkeeper Melat Cucullu finished with nine saves, including three in overtime. Villabroza registered 12 saves, two in overtime.

La Cañada will meet Glendale again at 3:30 p.m. April 9 at Moyse Field.