Minneapolis Warriors Triumph in Lacrosse

On April 19, Minneapolis senior midfielder Martha Polacek scored an amazing nine goals in a wild 19-18 overtime win over Hill-Murray.

Friday at home against visiting Woodbury/East Ridge, it was a different story as Polacek was held to a mere five goals. Nothing to worry about for the Minneapolis Warriors, however, as junior Hannah Hilden-Reid took up the slack with six goals.

Hilden-Reid and Polacek powered a fierce offensive attack for the Warriors with an 11 combined goals as the Warriors romped to a 14-8 win in a girls lacrosse contest at Minneapolis Washburn.

“I think that we played smart, and we settled it down on offense and I thought we did that very well,” said Hilden-Reid.

Woodbury/East Ridge scored the first two goals of the game before Minneapolis got rolling. The Warriors went on a 9-1 run to take control of the match.

“I was happy with our connections in the midfield,” said Polacek. “We passed it around well. We got it down the field.”

Leading 9-3 at the break, the Warriors extended their advantage to 11-3 on two more goals by Hilden-Reid to open the second half. Woodbury/East Ridge rallied with three straight goals to cut the margin to 11-6, but that was as close as the Griffins could come.

The Warriors were ably assisted defensively by ninth grade goalie Kayla Wuest.

“I’d say this is definitely our best game,” said Minneapolis Warriors head coach Julie Brandt. “Our goalie made some incredible saves. We played really tight defense and we were able to pick up the ball well. On offense it was clicking, good passes, good clears, good movement all the way down the field.”

The Minneapolis Warriors are a cooperative of players from Minneapolis Edison, Minneapolis North Community, Minneapolis Patrick Henry, Minneapolis Roosevelt, Minneapolis South, Minneapolis Southwest and Minneapolis Washburn. The team improved to 3-2 on the season.

Woodbury/East Ridge lost its second straight game after starting the season 4-0, falling to 4-2.

Hilden-Reid had six goals for the Warriors, followed by Polacek with five, Molly Carolan with two and Chloe Behm with one.

Ari Guanella had two goals to lead the Griffins. Teammates Jackie Hegg, Elizabeth Straub, Katherine Schulte, Blair Fanning, Sophia Bainbridge and Michelle Bailey added one goal each.

“We had worked a lot on faceoffs, so I was impressed that we were boxing out on our faceoffs,” said Griffins head coach Kara Midura. “We had a lot of good transitions down the field where we passed back and threw to the other side of the field, switching fields a lot. And we set up our offense, our settled offense, a couple of times, which was great and had some good one-on-ones with the goalie as well.”

Midura praised the play of senior captains Hegg, Bainbridge and Straub as well as eighth-grade goalie Cara Kaufer.

“Jackie just got back on the field after an injury, so she did really well, taking the draws all the time and getting possession” Midura said. “We had awesome interceptions by Sarah Ringgenberg, she’s our defense down there and she did a good job of setting up defense.”

Minneapolis plays at Minnehaha Academy Monday, starting at 6 p.m.

Woodbury/East Ridge hosts Cretin-Derham Hall Monday in a game starting at 6 p.m.

Minneapolis                                            9           5               --      14

Woodbury/East Ridge                            3          5                --       8