It was win or go home for the girls’ lacrosse team last night at Melbourne High School, as they faced-off against the Sebastian River High School Sharks. Despite a valiant effort amidst biased referees, extremely rude fans, and “dirty” players, the Lady Wildcats fell short to the Sharks by a score of six goals to four.

“We had a lot going against us last night,” senior defender Kayley Lew said. “One of the referees was from Sebastian River, so a lot of his calls were in their favor. In addition, the players were very dirty and were getting away with pushing and shoving unnecessarily on the field. To top it all off, the fans from Sebastian River were extremely rude and trashy, constantly shouting inappropriate remarks to us. It was a very rough game, and I hate that our season had to end losing in such unfair circumstances.”

Junior attack Kaitlin Inganna, who scored an impressive two goals and was ejected from the game, after receiving two yellow cards, was frustrated as well with the one-sided referees and rude players, but believed the team’s poor play in the first half was the true cause of their loss.

“Yes, the referees were bad, but the refs are typically bad,” Inganna said. “It’s nothing new to us. There were some very poor calls, such as when a girl on Sebastian River rammed into me, and I was given a yellow card for ‘shoving her,’ but we didn’t come to play in the first half and that was the primary reason we are not district champions. We made a very good comeback in the second half, escaping a deficit of five and bringing it to two, and we would have won the game, if we would have played as well in the first half as we did in the second. We did have a lot going against us last night, but we still could have easily pulled-out the win, if we had played to our potential consistently throughout the game. It’s certainly a good lesson for the team, and, though it was a tough way to end the season, I know that the program will benefit from the experience in the future.”