APEX — Motivated to perform well for its leaders on senior night, the Apex girl’s lacrosse team wanted to make a statement against Green Hope Thursday night by building an early lead.

To say that Apex dominated the early minutes of the game may be an understatement. The Cougars constantly controlled the ball and the tempo of the game, and built a 10-0 lead in the first half, leaving the Falcons little hope for a comeback and ultimately pulling away for the 13-5 win.

“Because it was senior night, we wanted to get out to a good start. Most of the time we start out kind of slow and we really wanted to pick it up in the first half and build a lead,” sophomore Cawley Bromley said.

Bromley scored the first goal of the game and the ensuing scoring run went unanswered until the second half. After Bromley’s goal, sophomore Kristy Marks score a hat trick in less than a minute, putting the Cougars up 4-0.

“I just wanted to come out strong,” Marks said. “They’re our rivals, and I know a bunch of the people on their team. I just came out playing as hard as I could. I wanted to score, but play smart and wanted to look for the assists too.”

The Cougars continued to dominate the first half, and scored 10 goals on impressive individual plays and even more impressive passing, according to coach Jessica Pinneo.

“I just think they were playing fired up and a good speed. That’s what they do best—move the ball and find the open player,” she said.

Green Hope looked much more confident in the second half, rattling off five consecutive goals after Apex tagged on two at the onset of the second period. Still, Apex’s first half lead was too much to overcome, even as Green Hope began to score on Apex’s reserves.

According to Bromley, the team is working on not allowing lapses in its dominance of teams over the course of games.

“We want to play a full 50 minutes,” Bromley said. “A lot of times we’re slacking off during some of the games, but we’re trying to bring it the whole time.”

Bromley answered the Green Hope run with her third goal of the game, joining sophomore Marks in scoring a hatrick and providing the game’s final goal.

For the Cougars (13-3) the goal from here is simple: win out.

“There’s no backing down,” Marks said. “We want the state championship.”

And for a team with so much success and now going for a “three-peat,”anything less would be a let down.