EL DORADO HILLS, Calif. – Top-seeded Oak Ridge advanced to the finals of the Sacramento Valley Lacrosse Conference with a 15-9 victory over St. Francis Tuesday night. But the Troubadours second-half rally pushed Oak Ridge until the end.

“This is the best St. Francis team we have seen all season,” said Co-Head Coach Julia Southard. “It is unfortunate that we had to end tonight because I think we could really do some damage in our league if we were able to keep playing. We came together for our seniors and we have a lot of pride for our seniors.  They bring a lot to our team and have provided great leadership all season.”

St. Francis lost to Oak Ridge twice during the regular season and put in a zone to try to stop the Trojans’ attack.

“We had to do something completely new to try to rattle them and keep ourselves in the game,” said Southard. “The girls bought in and learned it in an hour (yesterday at practice). They executed it perfectly tonight for what we gave them.”

Maggie Anderson opened the scoring with the first goal of the game. But Oak Ridge scored seven straight to take control of the game in the first half. With their season on the line, St. Francis was not going to give up, scoring twice to cut the lead to 7-3 at the break as Erica Palmer and Jade Borg scored.

Oak Ridge came out strong in the second half and built its lead to seven. But the Troubies were not giving up, scoring four straight with two goals by Sarah Westover and single scores by Megan Hoffeditz and Meg Anderson to cut the lead to 13-9 with 12:08 left. But Oak Ridge ended the rally with two goals and St. Francis never got closer.

“We have multiple scorers,” said Southard. “All year we have relied on certain people but tonight we really distributed the ball and that bodes well for the future of our program.”

Sarah Westover had three goals for St. Francis and senior Maggie Anderson added two to lead the team. Kelly Chavez, Meg  Anderson and Avery Myers each recorded multiple ground balls and goalies Kate Macintyre and Maggie Pinkston combined for 11 saves in the contest.