Girls' Lax: Corridon Helps Bishop Ireton Move to League Final

Corridon Helps Bishop Ireton Move to League Final
By B.J. Koubaroulis
Special to The Washington Post
Friday, May 9, 2008; E10

Bishop Ireton junior goalkeeper Bridgett Corridon admits that she doesn't like the pressure -- the lonely feeling of standing between the lacrosse goal posts by herself.

Much of that anxiety stems from a loss two years ago against Holy Cross, when Corridon felt that she let herself and her teammates down in a pivotal moment.

"We were on [junior varsity] and it was our last game, and there was 30 seconds left," Corridon said. "[Holy Cross] scored and they won, on me. Ever since then, I just, uh, I hate Holy Cross."

Yesterday, Corridon earned back some of that lost confidence, making three of her seven saves in the final 2 1/2 minutes to help Ireton hang on for an 11-10 win over Holy Cross in a Washington Catholic Athletic Conference girls' semifinal.

In Monday's 5 p.m. WCAC girls' final at the University of Maryland's Ludwig Field, the Cardinals (16-3) will face No. 8 Good Counsel -- a 21-9 winner yesterday over O'Connell. Good Counsel (14-6) has won the past four WCAC titles, and Ireton has lost in its only two championship game appearances, in 2003 and 2006.

Yesterday at Ireton, after junior Brittany Barnwell's fourth goal -- a right-handed 10-yard game-winner with 3:39 left -- Corridon made back-to-back saves with 2:27 left and then saved Hayley Katzenberger's potential game-tying free-position shot with 1:04 left.

The saves "were big motivation-boosters," said Corridon, who allowed six goals in the first half as Holy Cross took a 4-1 lead before the Cardinals tied it at 6 by halftime. "I needed to keep myself in the game. Saves help me do that."

Barnwell (four goals, five shots on goal, four turnovers) led the Ireton attack, which featured four different goal scorers in the second half. Junior Lauren Gray (one goal) dominated the draw control, winning 5 of 9 second-half tries.

"Draw controls are the key to the game basically," Gray said. "We know if we get a draw control, we are going to get a goal. Going in there, I knew I had to step it up and get as many draw controls as I could and get [the ball] down to the other end."

Barnwell's winner came less than three minutes after the Cardinals had back-to-back goals waved off and less than two minutes after the Tartans' Grace Dinn (five goals) forced the game's seventh tie at 10 with an overhand free-position shot with 4:59 left.

Bishop Ireton 11 Holy Cross 10 Up Next: Bishop Ireton will face No. 8 Good Counsel on Monday at 5 p.m. at the University of Maryland. Automatic Tela: Ireton's Julianne Tela, a George Mason-bound senior midfielder, has 208 points in her four-year career. She had two goals yesterday.