By ALEX SPONSELLER The Toll Gate girls lacrosse team traveled to Cranston Stadium and cruised past host Cranston East 7-2 last Friday night.

The Titans jumped out to an early lead, taking a 2-0 lead in the opening five minutes. The Titans continued to roll throughout the first half and racked up a 6-0 lead before Savana Lavimodiere scored with two seconds remaining in the half to make it 6-1 at the break.

The two teams battled in an evenly-matched second half, with each club scoring one more goal.

Adeline Areson recorded a hat trick for Toll Gate while Maddie Clarke, Cassie Cirella, Leah Fortin and Katie Pale all added one score each. Norah Flinn scored East’s goal in the second half.

Jillian Costello finished with 10 stops in goal for the Titans while Marissa North recorded 10 for East.

“Anytime you start a season 2-0 is a good feeling,” said Toll Gate coach Jim Areson. “We just have a really good mix of players. We have Cassie Cirella, Sara Rhodes, they have been four-year starters. We have Hope Flaherty, Meg McCamish coming back. Jill Costello played really well today, she did really good, We just want to improve every day. Katie Pale has scored in each of her first two varsity games, Adeline does a good job of distributing, doing stuff like that. Anytime you start 2-0 is good.”

Despite the low-scoring second half, Jim Areson was not disappointed in his team’s offensive performance.

“We actually played well in the second half. We didn’t drop the ball, we played fast, the (North) made some nice stops. We tried to score, but it just didn’t really happen. We’re still learning how to (operate) under pressure, but I thought overall they did a good job,” said Jim Areson.

East features a small roster this spring with many players that are just getting their first varsity experience. East coach Howard Chun felt that the small numbers took its toll on the Bolts in the contest and hopes to see his team improve with each experience.

“We only have 15 girls including the goalie, so we really only have one starting group. Some teams like to play aggressive and see how much they can get away with which happened today and it kind of wore us down. They’re learning, losing last year didn’t help because a lot of our players, this is like their first year. We’ve got a lot to work on. We need communicate a little better, gain more confidence,” said Chun.

Chunn added: “They were aggressive, so in the second half, we knew that we had to push back. We were a little surprised in the first half, but it made us up our game and push harder. That was the difference. The Burrillville game was the same way, they jumped out to a 7-1 lead but then 2-1 in the second half. We’re starting slow right now so hopefully once they gain some more confidence we can figure out what teams are doing and how we can push back.”