DP girls LAX closing in on undefeated regular season -- Observer Preps

The Dr. Phillips girls lacrosse program has been good the entire time its current senior class has been on campus.

The Panthers were good in 2014, finishing the season with a 14-5 record. In 2015, they went 15-3. Last spring, Dr. Phillips compiled a 13-3 record. 

The past three seasons have been good seasons for the program; good seasons with little details — rivals Olympia and West Orange, mainly — obstructing the path between the Panthers and great seasons.

This spring, though, has revealed a Dr. Phillips squad on the cusp of greatness. With two games left in the regular season once the Panthers return from spring break, the girls are a perfect 12-0. 

Dr. Phillips’ last game before the break — a 21-5 victory over West Orange March 14 — was the Panthers’ first victory against the Warriors since 2014. A week earlier, on March 7, Dr. Phillips’ 20-7 victory over Olympia was the first against the Titans since 2012. Not so coincidentally, 2012 also marks the last time the Panthers were champions of the Metro West — a crown they secured this spring with the victory against the Warriors before the break.

The numbers behind the breakout season for Dr. Phillips are even more impressive: The Panthers have scored 239 goals this season, good for an average of 19.9 points per game. On defense, opponents have scored just 67 points — an average of 5.6 per game. Those number have created an average victory margin of 15.2 points per game — a number skewed by the Panthers’ tightest victory this spring, a 13-11 victory over Bishop Moore Feb. 21.

And, although some in the Central Florida lacrosse community may be raising eyebrows at numbers behind Dr. Phillips’ dominance this spring, don’t count head coach Tim Morse among them.

“Honestly, I did expect (it),” Morse said. “We were hurt last year. We were missing our whole midfield line. I knew going into the fall, we’d started having a lot of success against a lot of the good teams in Central Florida. ... We definitely thought we would be in this situation.”

Morse credits a lot of his team’s success to leadership — whether it is the leadership coming from expected places, such as his two seniors (Elyse Decker and Piper Johnson) who are Division I signees, or an unexpected place such as freshmen Mary Sosebee or Michelle McGrath.

“You can’t tell who the best player is by their attitude,” Morse said. “In lacrosse, to be a good team, you’ve got to have great leadership — on the field and off the field. We have that.”

Contact Steven Ryzewski at [email protected].