GARDINER — It won’t generate headlines or show up in the stats at season’s end. But what Kiara Henry does for the Cony girls lacrosse team hardly goes unnoticed.
“She’s the catalyst,” Cony coach Gretchen Livingston said.
Indeed, she is.
Henry, a senior, finished with a goal and four assists in the Rams’ 11-6 win over rival Gardiner on Monday. And while those numbers were nice, that wasn’t where Henry was most valuable. She won nine of the game’s 17 draws, including all but one in the entire first half as Cony raced out to a 7-1 halftime advantage.
It was a clinic in how to seize control in a contest dictated by possession.
“I know that if I don’t score the goals, I at least have something,” Henry said. “My role is draw control. I try every game to place it and try to get it to everyone else, so everyone has a touch on the ball.
“My No. 1 priority is winning the draw, getting possession and making sure we have the ball in our (offensive) end.”
Cony scored three goals in the contest’s first 1:55 and enjoyed a 5-0 lead by the time the game was a shade over five minutes old. In each of the first four of the goals, Henry won the draw cleanly, carried the ball confidently down the center of the field and dished off to a teammate for the score.
And while those quick strikes were certainly welcomed by the Rams, there were two other instances which truly illustrated the means by which Henry dominated the midfield.
After a slow start to the game, Gardiner finally got on the board with two and a half minutes remaining in the first half — ending a long stretch of possession for the Tigers with which to build some momentum into the second half.
Henry won the ensuing draw, carved a direct line to the goal and answered just 10 seconds after the first of three Emma Bourget goals for Gardiner.
“That stuff absolutely matters,” Livingston said. “It’s a possession game, and she takes that very seriously. She doesn’t seek the limelight of trying to put the ball into the back of the net. She doesn’t even consider that a role of hers. … I wish she would consider that more of a role, because she’s really good at it.”
Henry is happy to let others finish off plays, and there are plenty of options for the Rams.
Senior Sierra Clark scored four times for Cony, while juniors Raegan Bechard and Andrea Richardson each added a pair.
With under five minutes remaining in the second half and Gardiner having cut the Cony lead to 9-6, Henry repeated her first-half performance gut punch to the Tigers — winning the draw, sprinting into the attack and setting up Clark for a free position goal 44 seconds later.
How Henry was thrust into the role of dominating draw controls required a bit of happenstance.
As a sophomore, Henry was a role player called into action when an injury forced Livingston to find someone new to take draws.
“Thank god for that injury, because that was a huge opportunity to show what she could do,” Livingston said. “She never looked back. She picked up this year right where she left off — or even better — with that senior confidence she has.”
Henry is hardly a one dimensional player, and there’s a thought process to the game within the game at midfield.
What looks like luck of the draw — pun intended — is anything but. Henry changes up her plan nearly every time.
“It depends on where (the opponents) are standing,” Henry said. “If there’s an opposite defender on either side and two of my teammates are in the middle, I’ll try and get it to them so all three of us have a chance to get it. Or if I have an opening next to me, I’ll go for that. Or if I have an opening right in front of me, where (the opponent) can’t just turn around and get to it quickly, I’ll go for that.
“It really depends.”
Lilly Diversi finished with three goals for the Tigers, who got a stellar goalkeeping effort from Skye Cotnoir (14 saves).
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