The Cranston East Lady ‘Bolts defeated the Toll Gate Lady Titans 7-2 in DIII lacrosse on Thursday evening.

Cranston East senior Jillian Fitzgerald scored four goals and her teammate Taylor Cahill, also a senior, chipped in two goals while junior goaltender Bernadette Linsangan made six saves.

“The girls played well today,” Cranston East head coach Howard Chun said. “We kept emphasizing pass, pass, and look up, teamwork, teamwork and that sort of stuff and finally it’s starting to gel. The first few games, we were over the winter break and we had a lot of people missing, so it was a little tough to get practice time in.”

Patrice Canning scored both goals for Toll Gate.

“Patrice has been playing well,” Toll Gate head coach Jim Areson said. “This is her senior year, so it’s nice to see her get on the scoreboard as much as she has. She’s made great leaps from last year. She’s just a wonderful kid. She’s just a phenomenal person to coach. I really like coaching her. I’ve been coaching her now for four years between lacrosse and field hockey so it’s been a real pleasure.”

East got the first goal of the game just under five minutes in when Fitzgerald’s wraparound attempt was denied by Russo and then Cahill put in the rebound and gave the ‘Bolts a 1-0 lead.

The ‘Bolts got their second goal when Fitzgerald scored on a free position shot with 5:31 left in the first half.

Then, with 12 seconds remaining in the half, East senior Jorgie Pashalian dished to Fitzgerald, who put the biscuit in the basket and gave the ‘Bolts a 3-0 edge heading into halftime.

Four and a half minutes into the second half, out of a free position penalty, Pashalian scored and gave East a 4-0 lead.

A minute and a half later, Toll Gate’s Alyssa O’Keefe passed ahead to Isabel Kennedy and she left it for Canning, who rifled it past Linsangan and pulled the Lady Titans within 4-1.

East upped its advantage to 5-1 with 15:10 remaining when Cahill spun in front and netted her second tally.

About two minutes later, Canning scored her second goal on a penalty shot and got the Lady Titans within 5-2.

Two minutes after that, the ‘Bolts answered when Fitzgerald buried a shot into the back of the net and extended the ‘Bolts edge to 6-2.

Finally, with 1:18 remaining, East senior Alisa Costa found Fitzgerald for a score and gave East a 7-2 advantage.

With the win, the Lady ‘Bolts improve to 3-1 on the season while the Lady Titans fall to 0-6.

Despite, not getting its first win, Areson, Toll Gate’s head coach, sees improvement in his team with every game.

“They played hard,” Areson said. “We have the last few games. It’s a slow improvement. We’re getting slowly better. They’ve got to keep on working. No one’s going to feel sorry for them. If you’re a competitor, you’re going to keep trying to work; you’re going to try to get better as much as you can. And they’re all competitors so they’ll keep on battling, they’ll keep on playing to the best of their ability.”   

East plays its next game on Tuesday at Westerly and Toll Gate plays next on Friday at Scituate.