Girls lacrosse: Redwood beats Tam, advances to NCS finals rematch
Redwood High junior Lucy Jeffers is looking forward to cashing in on a long overdue IOU when the Giants face top-seeded San Ramon Valley in Thursday’s North Coast Section Division I girls lacrosse championship.
Jeffers scored a game-high four goals and Nina Baker added three goals in Tuesday’s 12-7 semifinal victory over Tam as the No. 2 Giants (18-4) clinched their title shot. Redwood will be seeking its first NCS title since 2022, against a very familiar foe.
The Wolves (18-3) beat No. 4 Marin Catholic, 14-11, in Tuesday’s other semifinal to set up a rematch of last year’s NCS final. San Ramon Valley has frustrated Redwood’s title hopes the past two years. The Wolves beat the Giants, 14-8, in the 2024 title game, and eliminated Redwood, 18-5, in the 2023 semifinals.
“Last year we came up short, coming in second in the NCS final,” said Jeffers, who will be playing in the NCS final for the second time. “This is definitely a goal we’ve had across the board since February.”
While Redwood has a chance to end its recent playoff drought against San Ramon Valley, the Giants will have to wait until next season to avenge their MCAL title loss to Marin Catholic (19-5).
“We came up short in MCALs, which still hurts. That one’s going to hurt for a while,” Jeffers said. “But that’s the past and we’ve got to look forward to the NCS finals, which is still in our control. So we’re going to put everything on the line.”
Tam, the 2023 NCS D-II champion, lost to San Ramon Valley in last year’s D-I quarterfinals, so the Red-tailed Hawks also had a score to settle. But first, they had to get past Redwood, a team the Hawks hadn’t beaten since 2023.
“Every time you play Redwood, it’s definitely an emotional game, a high stakes game,” said Tam junior Quinlin Dayton, who finished with two goals against Redwood on Tuesday.
Dayton staked Tam (14-6-1) to a quick 2-0 lead on a pair of penalty shots in the first 3 minutes of the game.
“Our ball movement and our aggressive shooting, we didn’t worry about our misses,” Dayton said. “We just shot aggressively and worked together. It worked, it was fast, it was high paced and it produced a lot of shots.”
But Redwood was just getting warmed up. The Giants got a pair of goals from Baker and scores from Presley Pewitt and Jeffers for a 4-2 lead by the end of the first quarter, and never trailed again.
“We wanted to start fast, faster than we did last time against them,” Pewitt said. “They started fast, but it’s just we thought the score was still 0-0 every time we got the ball. We didn’t even think about the scoreboard.”
The Giants’ Claire Johnson converted on an 8-meter shot to open the second quarter, before Northwestern-bound Rowie Scobie answered with a goal for Tam. Jeffers got her second goal of the game off a penalty shot in the final minute of the first half for a 6-3 Giants lead.
Redwood controlled the ball and the pace of play through most of the game. Jeffers won seven draw controls, while Johnson had five.
“The motivation you get when your team comes up with the possession,” Jeffers said, “whether it’s on the ground, on defense, or in a scrap, or just taking care of it on the attack, just having the ball really centers you, calms the team down, and allows you to put your best foot forward.”
The Giants got goals from Riley Buck, Baker and Johnson in the first 5 minutes of the second half before Tam had the chance to respond.
Kate Carvalho scored on a penalty shot to cut Tam’s deficit to 9-4. After another penalty goal from Jeffers, the Red-tailed Hawks got a goal from Ellie McEvilley as the third quarter closed with the Giants leading 10-5.
“We couldn’t get the ball back when we were on defense,” Scobie said. “We didn’t expect Redwood to start stalling with five, six minutes to play. We weren’t prepared for that and we needed to get the ball back.”
It seemed Pewitt scored her second goal of the day early in the fourth quarter, but it was waved off by the officials who called her for a foul and sent her to the sideline. As soon as Pewitt was allowed to re-enter she raced straight toward the action in front of the Tam net and this time made her score count.
Tam’s Cora O’Connell found a loose ball after a penalty shot and tucked in the putback for a goal with 9:28 left to play. Jeffers and Scobie traded penalty-shot goals in the final minute to cap the scoring.
“We’re all just really hoping for a game where we all play for our seniors and for each other, because you never know when it’s going to be your last game. And that was today,” Dayton said. “But I feel we did that. We played together today, so there’s really nothing more to ask for.”