Gwinnett Daily Post

Photo: Craig Cappy Peachtree Ridge's Caitlin Palanza runs down field as she is defended by Mill Creek's Rachel Gann on Saturday.

BUFORD -- For the Mill Creek girls lacrosse team, it was another landmark victory as the Hawks took home a 15-6 win over Peachtree Ridge in the gold bracket championship of the 2012 Gwinnett County girls Lacrosse Tournament.

Victorious in the silver bracket of last year's tournament, Mill Creek won both matches in this year's tournament to claim the gold bracket title and improve to 4-0 on the young season.

"This is a great win for us," said Mill Creek head coach Brian Williamson. "We've come a long way since last year, when we won in the silver bracket. Our girls have worked hard to get to this point and it meant a lot to beat a good team in Peachtree Ridge."

Mill Creek, the No. 1 seed, had advanced to the championship match by knocking off No. 4 seed Collins Hill 22-9 earlier in the day.

Meanwhile, No. 3 seed Peachtree Ridge had defeated No. 6 North Gwinnett 14-9 on Friday and No. 2 seed Wesleyan 13-9 on Saturday to set up the title match. In the championship, Peachtree Ridge (2-1) jumped out to a quick 2-0 lead less than two minutes into the match.

The opening goal came from Caitlin Palanza just 41 seconds in and Rachel Harper followed that up with another goal 42 seconds later for the Lions.

But Mill Creek responded and ran off six straight goals to take a 6-2 lead with 8:54 to go in the first half.

Alexis Ordini and Emily Hallberg had two goals apiece while Maddie Peek and Mckenzie Fagioli each had a goal as Mill Creek built the four-goal advantage.

After Mill Creek took an 8-3 lead at halftime, the Hawks pushed out to an 11-4 margin by scoring three of the first four goals in the second half.

Fagioli scored her second goal of the game and Rachel Gann got two quick scores for the Hawks.

"It's hard to pick out anyone in particular to say they played well, because we got contributions from a lot of players," said Williamson. "I also thought Chandler (Griffin) played well in goal and came up with good saves after a tough start."

Fagioli finished with four goals to lead Mill Creek and Windom had three goals and an assist.

Ordini added three goals while Gann and Hallberg had two goals apiece and Peek had a goal and an assist for the Hawks.

Peachtree Ridge was led by Harper's four goals while Kayla Jones and Palanza had one each.

Wesleyan 15, Collins Hill 14

Wesleyan scored with less than a minute to go in the contest to take a 15-14 win over Collins Hill in the third-place game of the gold bracket.

Brookwood 20, GAC 2

Brookwood took a 20-2 decision over GAC to win the silver bracket. Brookwood had defeated Parkview 14-8 while GAC had beaten Archer 10-4 to advance.

Parkview 16, Archer 0

Parkview knocked off Archer 16-0 to take home third in the silver bracket.