ESTWOOD - The Westwood High girls lacrosse team has a dangerous habit of playing in spurts, where the Wolverines look unstoppable one minute and uninspired the next.

Although they were able to overcome such a bout of inconsistency in last Wednesday's 13-11 win over No. 6 Needham in a Division 1 South quarterfinal at Xaverian Brothers High School, the No. 3 Wolverines will need to iron out such lapses if they hope to defend their state title this spring.

Westwood stretched a lead to as many as six goals early in the second half only to see Needham slowly chip away the deficit down to two goals late in the game. The Wolverines then scored twice to make it a four-goal cushion before the Rockets again cut it in half only to see Westwood take possession on the final draw and run out the clock.

"That's the way it's been all season," said Westwood coach Leslie Frank. "We have spurts of real fluid lacrosse and then, somehow, we're not happy when we're successful, so we let down a little bit. Every game, especially these tough games, against opponents that are that aggressive to the stick and that skilled themselves, we tend to ebb and flow. We go hard and then we let back, and when we let back then the other team seems to read that and go hard."

When Westwood was at its best yesterday, the Wolverines were executing well in the Needham zone and relentless on the ground while winning most of the draws. Needham coach Beth O'Brien noted that the Wolverines' pressure forced her team into some early turnovers which were critical in Westwood jumping out to a big first-half lead.

"Westwood, I tip my hat to them, they consistently put pressure on us the whole game and they never stopped fighting," said O'Brien. "There was pressure from every angle every time a kid got the ball, there were two, three people on top of us. That made a big difference, and they played with a lot of poise when they were on offense, and their defense fought pretty hard. I just think all over the field, they continuously pressured us, and that's key."

The game was all tied up at 4 before Westwood made a surge at the end of the first half that eventually proved too much for the Rockets to overcome. Erin Massimi (goal, assist) started it with a free position goal with 7:56 remaining in the half for a 5-4 Wolverines lead. Westwood then followed with free position goals from Alex Frank (4 goals, assist) and Sara Harrington (goal, 2 assists).

With the Wolverines winning each draw in the run, Steph Egizi and Callie Rose (3 goals, assist) followed with goals, Rose's on an assist from Harrington to give Westwood a 9-4 lead. Needham stopped the bleeding with a Sara Reddington (2 goals, 3 assists) goal at the end of the half, but the damage was done.

The Wolverines then jumped out to their biggest lead of the game with goals at the start of the second half by Rose and Taylor Obey, pushing their advantage to 11-5.

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