Walton Dominates In Playoff Opener, Defeats Alpharetta 18-7
In the opening round of the Georgia High School Association 6A-7A girls lacrosse state championship tournament, No. 1, the Walton Raiders hosted No. 4, the Alpharetta Raiders on Thursday night. With Walton controlling the draws early, they would open up the game on a 5-0 run before Alpharetta would finally score courtesy of an Ava Uphues free possession goal to make it a 5-1 for Walton. Walton close out the first half on a 5-2 run and lead 10-3 at the break.
In the second half, following a Kate Zeiher goal that would give Walton an 11-3 lead, Alpharetta looked to start a rally and would score back to back goals to make it a 11-5 lead for Walton, however Walton would take a timeout to discuss things with head coach Amanda Ryan and out of the timeout, Walton responded with a 6-0 run to take 17-5 lead and would finish the game outscoring Alpharetta 8-4 in the second half to pick up the 18-7 win.
Following the win, Coach Ryan acknowledge that the winning of the draw was key in their victory but she also credited the “outside speed” for playing a very important role offensively, allowing Walton to control the field throughout the contest. Ryan added that it was important that when Alpharetta connected on back to back goals in the second half, she knew immediately that she wanted to call a timeout to talk with her girls in efforts to put a stop to an Alpharetta rally “right away” and that proved to be the right move as Walton would outscore Alpharetta 7-2 from that point in route to the win.
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