Patriots Follow Slow Start With Nine Straight Wins

Wohnhas said her team has a little extra motivation for the regular season. As the only Montgomery County 1A school, the Falcons are aiming for the 1A West region's top seed so they can have a chance to host the region final May 16. That's because the school's prom is that evening, and the Falcons do not want to have to travel to a school in the western panhandle of the state for a game that afternoon.

Bragging Rights at Stake

Saturday's girls' lacrosse game between Wootton and Quince Orchard is likely to decide the class of the county.

Both teams were undefeated through Monday's games, and since Montgomery doesn't have a "county championship," as other areas do, the 4 p.m. matchup at Wootton will prove which team is tops in the Montgomery 4A/3A league.

"We're going to be a lot more aggressive," said first-year Quince Orchard coach Skye Saltsman, who played at Penn State. "On 50-50 balls [balls in the air], on ground balls. Every little thing should be a battle."

Quince Orchard has one of the best scorers in the county in junior Alissa Peterson (40 goals). Junior Alyssa Odenkirchen, who leads the team in assists, will likely be feeding her the ball.

Wootton, which features nine seniors, will count on three of them for the majority of its offense: leading scorer Julie Klatzkin (an academic all-American), Liza Kaplan and Carrie Bray.

"For us it's going to come down to executing a tight defense and timing our slides correctly," said Coach Anne-Marie Ritzell. . . .

Bethesda-Chevy Chase boys' lacrosse coach Alan Pohoryles is hesitant to label any game as a good loss, but that's essentially what the Barons had April 11, when they lost to Wootton, 12-8.

Since that game, the Barons (9-2) have won five in a row, including an 8-7 overtime win at Walter Johnson and a 14-6 home win against Poolesville last week.

"The biggest thing is that I think we played [Wootton] very well, and I think the guys realize that," Pohoryles said. "We're a team to contend with. We played the only team in Montgomery County history to make the state finals [which happened last season] to a 12-8 game, and if we didn't make a few mistakes, we could have won that game."

In addition to the goaltending of John Goldberg and midfield play of Gus Vita, who scored the game-tying and game-winning goals against Walter Johnson, the Barons have had solid contributions throughout the field from senior defenseman Ryan Haughey, junior midfielder Chris Pappalardo and senior attackman Christian Cobb.

Special correspondents Jeff Nelson and Dave Yanovitz contributed to this report.