MANHATTAN BEACH – Carly Naud’s Saturday was a good example of what the Foothill girls lacrosse team had to go through in the U.S. Lacrosse Southern Section championship game.
Naud, a senior, injured her ankle in the first period, sat out for a brief moment, came back and scored three goals, including the winner with 24 seconds remaining to lift the Knights to an 11-10 victory over Redondo Union at Mira Costa High.
Her goal helps the Knights put the finishing touches on a season that included the Orange County and Southern Section titles.
“That was our goal at the beginning of the year,” Naud said.
To make matters more interesting, before she attempted what turned out to be the winning goal, Naud slipped, but was still able to get up and score the goal.
Naud had four goals in Foothill’s 10-7 victory over Beckman in the O.C. championship game on Wednesday.
“That’s actually a Naud move,” assistant coach Kate Hick joked. “It works when it works. She has a nose for the goal, and she will make it happen.”
Foothill’s Julia Taylor won the ensuing draw, affording the Knights the opportunity to run out the clock and start the celebration.
For the second consecutive game, Foothill had things get interesting late.
The Knights took a 10-7 lead with 13:34 remaining. Redondo then took advantage of a Foothill penalty and tied the score at 10-10 with 7:31 remaining.
“We like to make things interesting,” Naud said. “I was confident that we would win.”
Foothill took an 8-5 lead into halftime thanks to the all-around play of Sophie Forester. Forester scored five goals and added two assists.
“She’s always been a huge asset for us,” Hick said of Forester. “When Julia (Taylor) and Meridian Lee draw a lot of attention, she’s so great coming around the crease left-handed and she’s sneaky like that. It was great to see her have a great big half like that.”
Hannah Upshaw had just two saves, but the second came at a crucial moment in the second half after the Sea Hawks were applying heavy pressure.
Taylor added two goals for the Knights with two assists. Lee had the other goal.
“We scheduled a really hard schedule on purpose,” Hick said. “We did a ton of conditioning, and we had a ton of hard games.
“Before this game started, I said we had already been tested a 1,000 times, so we were going to be ready for this game and this is the end goal.”
Contact the writer: dcalhoun@ocregister.com
