By DAVE O’SULLIVAN Publisher Egg Harbor Township girls lacrosse coach Franklin Williams didn’t shave prior to an April 5 game against Millville. The Eagles started the season with consecutive losses to Mainland and Middle Township, but against the Thunderbolts they wiped out a 9-7 halftime deficit by outscoring Millville 9-5 in the second half to capture their first win of the season. Williams figured not shaving was a good luck charm, and jokingly told his team that he wasn’t going to shave again until the Eagles lost another game. As the calendar turned to May, coach Williams’ wife wasn’t too happy about her husband’s three-week beard, which is only getting longer by the day. The Eagles came into May as one of the hottest teams in South Jersey, having won 11 straight games to improve to 11-2. All of a sudden, Cape-Atlantic League powerhouses Ocean City (13-2, 11-2 as of May 12) and Middle Township (15-2, 15-0) had another contender to deal with. As of May 12, the Eagles had stretched that win streak to 14 with wins over Atlantic City, OLMA and Williamstown. EHT is now 14-2 overall and 13-2 in the CAL, behind only league-leading Middle Township “Once we beat Cedar Creek (on April 12) we got over .500 for the first time since I’ve been coaching. I started last year, and we reached .500 the very last game of the season last year. But this is the first time we’ve gone over .500,” Williams said. “I told the girls, ‘this is important to me.’ I told them I hadn’t shaved since we lost, now we’re 11 games down the road and my wife is yelling at me. The girls took it really seriously, and now their mission is to get me to look like a wizard.” Madison Barney is one of several underclassmen making an impact for the Eagles. Madison Barney is one of several underclassmen making an impact for the Eagles. “The perfect example was our game against Lower Cape May,” Hogan said. “I got face-guarded the whole game and I didn’t score. I don’t think I even had an assist. But we had Jordan Santana step up and scored six goals, Jess Sheffer helped out and scored (three goals). It showed we’re not just a one-scorer team. We have an entire offense that can score.” “We have such a team mentality. Erin Hogan is one of the most dominant players in the CAL, and teams try to shut her down. But we love when they face-guard her because it just opens up everyone else. I don’t think we’ve had a game since we went on that winning streak where less than five players have scored. When we beat Millville to get our first win of the season, Hogan had eight goals. The next game, Nicole Jandris had six goals. Then it was Jordan Santana with six goals, then Jess Sheffer had seven goals. The ball has been getting passed around so much that I don’t think teams know who to focus on because we have such a solid team on offense,” Williams said. “I coached two years at the freshman level before I took over varsity, and even on the freshman level that was my mentality. We want to make this a team sport and we want to get the ball moving around. It’s so hard to stop when everyone can score.” A huge test for the Eagles was scheduled to come on May 6 against Ocean City, a team that has challenged for the league title the past two seasons and is doing so again, but that game got pushed back to May 12 due to rain. Williams said he views that game as a measuring stick to see how far the Eagles have come. “We’re sitting in a playoff position. Ocean City will be a big game for us. If we can take one from Ocean City, that would be huge for us,” Williams said. “That would be big for us in terms of power points. There are so many teams out west and even though they might be 2-8 they have more power points than us.” “We have Ocean City coming up, and that’s going to be really tough,” Hogan said. “But if we can just keep up the intensity we’ve been playing with, I think we have a shot. Hopefully, we can get far in the playoffs. Last year we didn’t even make it to the playoffs.” Contact Dave O’Sullivan: sully@acglorydays.com; on Twitter @GDsullysays [adsense]