Delaney Scores 200th, But East Girls Lacrosse Falls in Playoffs

It was a bittersweet ending to her high school career for Cherry Hill East’s Caitlin Delaney.

The Cougars senior started out the day with two things in mind—get to 200 goals for her career, and help East get by Cherokee in the first round of the girls lacrosse playoffs.

The former was a success—the latter fell apart in the second half.

Delaney scored four goals in the first half—including her 200th with 12:28 left—and added two more in the second, but Cherokee five unanswered goals to pull away in the final seven minutes to oust the Cougars Friday, 12-9.

“There was a point in the season, a couple games ago…I got really emotional, I didn’t think I was going to be able to get it,” Delaney said of her milestone goal. “I was so nervous at the beginning of this game, but when I got it…all the stress left. It just wasn’t enough at the end.”

The Cougars were never able to establish control in the game, trading leads with the Chiefs early before going to halftime down a goal.

East came out hot after halftime, though, reeling off three goals to take its biggest lead of the game—but after Delaney’s last goal of the contest, with 6:56 left to go, the offense went dormant.

And worse, Cherokee’s offense caught fire.

The Chiefs answered Delaney’s goal just seven seconds later with Jenna Castaglia’s first goal of the game. She would add another just over a minute later to tie it up, and Lauren Thomas scored what proved to be the game-winner with 3:54 to go.

“It would’ve been awesome to win, but Cherokee came out ready to play us,” Delaney said. “We just weren’t expecting for them to really jump on us.”