One minute into the second quarter of the No. 5 Sussex Academy girls’ lacrosse team’s second-round game against No. 13 Smyrna, the Seahawks initiated a running clock on their way to a 17-4 victory.

“We knew we had to come out hard and play fast; we really wanted to use today to prepare us for the rest of the tournament as well, so we wanted to work through some of our plays, our motions, and we knew we had to play fast,” said coach Taylor Gibbs. “It started off a little rough in the beginning, but we were able to kind of clean it up as the first quarter went on and find some goals.”

Collecting contributions from nearly every grade level, Sussex Academy’s 9-0 advantage was the result of four goals from junior Ellie Merrick and a tally each from senior Emiley Bisaha, junior Lily Bisaha, junior Shea Danahy, sophomore Liz Layton and eighth-grader Mady Lehman.

The elder Bisaha led the team with three helpers and enjoyed playing more minutes with her younger sister on the offensive end.

“I'm really happy she's playing middie as well as defense and attack, so it's fun to play with her,” said Emiley.

“Players have stepped up into the roles of what they're supposed to be doing out there, and I think the juniors especially have stepped into a role of kind of taking authority,” Rilyn Lehman said.

As the offense bombarded the Smryna net, the defense held things down, not allowing a goal until there was just over a minute left in the first half and took a 13-1 lead into half.

“A lot of teamwork, talking, playing together and with intensity overall,” said senior Savannah Montgomery.

Senior Morgan Leeper finished the game with four stops, some on the doorstep, and was quite proud of her team’s efforts.

“We came into this game with a lot of intensity, and we knew that we had to win to keep going to hopefully make it to the final round,” Leeper said. “Our defense and our midfield really worked well together for that transitioning up, and I had a lot of trust in my defense.” 

Throughout the game, the Seahawks navigated from defense to offense with relative ease.

“We worked a lot in practice using our speed and really transitioning the ball to offense so we can have the option to attack on our end,” Montgomery said. “We were really able to capitalize on that today, as long as we were  getting open and talking with each other.”

As the whistle blew to end the game, the Seahawks had Layton, Emiley Bisaha and Shea Danahy in the multi-goal club, two each, with Lily Bisaha and Merrick. Sophomore Savannah Couch registered an assist.

Sussex Academy will head back to Archmere to take on the No. 4 Auks in a rematch of a game the Seahawks dropped 13-12 to end their regular season. The game is set for 4:30 p.m., Thursday, May 22. 

“We were hoping we were gonna see them again and, luckily, the bracket kind of fell in our favor,” Gibbs said. 

Boys’ team eliminated

The Sussex Academy boys’ lacrosse team concluded its 2025 season with a 16-1 loss to No. 3 Tatnall in the state tournament. The No. 16 Seahawks finish with a 10-7 overall record.