Fort Mill girls win 2nd round playoff shootout

Sometimes winning is ugly and you just have to survive to advance.

For the Fort Mill Yellow Jackets girls’ lacrosse team, that is exactly what happened in the second round of the 5A state playoffs as they held off a strong Spartanburg Vikings team winning 19-16.

“They played like a team, which was beautiful,” Jackets head coach Kellianne Wunk said.

For the Jackets, it was a matter of just getting to the third round of the tournament. The second round has been the speed bump that derailed Fort Mill in the playoffs in the past.

“We were looking to get over the second game hump,” Wunk said.

Fort Mill opened the game scoring first with a goal from Wallace Cortazar just 47 seconds into the game. Spartanburg struck back soon after that. The Jackets then scored three straight goals to go up 4-1, but the Vikings kept things close throughout the first half, despite never getting the lead.

At one point in the first half, Fort Mill rattled off four straight goals with the help of Amanda Brown, Caylee Brown and Cortazar to go up 10-5.

Turning point

While holding a one point lead, Fort Mill scored the final two goals of the game in the final 2:45 to cut off Spartanburg’s rally with goals from Cortazar and Charlotte Anderson.

Critical

Spartanburg made a game of things in the second half. With Fort Mill leading 17-10, the Vikings rattled off six unanswered goals in about four and-a-half minutes to pull within one point of Fort Mill.

Star contributions

The Jackets were led by several players including Cortazar, Anderson and Amanda Brown, all who scored four or more goals throughout the game.

On deck

Fort Mill heads to Wando to this week to play in the state semifinals. The winner goes to the state finals Saturday to play the winner of the JL Mann/Riverside match.

This story was originally published April 21, 2017 at 7:20 PM with the headline "Fort Mill girls win 2nd round playoff shootout."