TOWAMENCIN – For the North Penn girls’ lacrosse team, their biggest game of the season isn’t because of who they are playing against, but who they are playing for. This game isn’t a playoff or championship game, but one that holds much more meaning than any playoff or championship game could ever hold. 

Wednesday night at Crawford Stadium, the Knights played their annual ¨Lax for Leukemia¨ game against Central Bucks South. ¨Lax for Leukemia¨ is an event hosted in honor of Alyssa Marie Oxenford, a 2011 North Penn Lacrosse Alumni who lost her life to cancer. Although this game is held every year, starting at last year’s game the event gained another purpose after 2022 North Penn graduate and Lacrosse Alumni Belle Sparango fought against Hodgkin’s Lymphoma. 

The Knights (9-4) dominated the Titans (4-10) 19-5 in what looked to be a close game in the beginning but quickly countered to the Titan’s defense trying to keep up with the Knights´ offense. This game was filled with many goal scorers on the Knights including hat tricks from senior Lauren Blanch, sophomore Katie Harkins, sophomore Grace McGeehan, and senior captain Kayla Stressman who also scored her 100th career goal.

With a ceremony honoring Oxenford and Sparango shortly before the game, the adrenaline and nerves were there for the Knights which showed in the first few back-and-forth minutes. After Stressman won the tip-off ball, she scored the first goal of the game in the first 45 seconds. Blanch added another goal just two minutes after. 

¨I think we were all really really excited and a little bit nervous about this game so I think we just needed to take a second, get the ball, settle down, and then play our game like we know we can,¨ senior captain Grace Macnamara explained.

The Titans scored their first goal of the night three minutes into the half then followed with another goal shortly after. The back and forth continued throughout the first half but the Knights finished the half with a 7-4 lead. 

¨We were in the game, we were focused, the energy was up and I think that’s what got us ahead. The beginning of games are always back and forth so we were pretty used to it,¨ Stressman stated.

The second half started again with the ball in the Knights´ possession. The Knights´ offense was unstoppable the whole second half scoring a total of 12 more goals. Great efforts from Macnamara and senior captain and goalkeeper Keira Holt, held the Titans to only one goal in the second half with a final score of 19-5.

Other goals were contributed by sophomore Stephanie Gibson and freshman Morgan Rodoff both with two goals and Quinn Rodoff with one goal.

The Knights will play against the Souderton Indians on Monday night away at Souderton at 5 pm looking to get their seventh consecutive win.

¨It feels really awesome to win this game because we see this as the biggest game of the season no matter who we are playing. We play it for somebody bigger than ourselves, we play it for people who are still fighting, who have won their battles, who have lost their battles, and it’s just really really important to us. Especially because now this is for Belle too, our old teammate,¨ Macnamara said.