Old Lyme — It's not exactly something you expect to hear from an all-state lacrosse player.

But Sloane Sweitzer, a junior member of the Old Lyme High School girls' lacrosse team, was afraid to ruin her team's chemistry when she returned earlier this month from a torn anterior cruiciate ligament in her left knee.

“I didn't want to mess with the flow of everything,” Sweitzer said Tuesday.

Not that it happened.

Sweitzer has added both her experience to a young Old Lyme lineup and another weapon on offense, finishing Tuesday's game with six goals and three assists as the top-seeded Wildcats defeated No. 4 Morgan 18-5 in the semifinals of the Shoreline Conference tournament.

Old Lyme will play No. 2 Old Saybrook, a 14-5 winner over Haddam-Killingworth in the tournament's other semifinal, in the championship game beginning at 5 p.m. Thursday at Connecticut College.

Sydney Cowell added six goals and Sophia Romeo and Lauren Quaratella had two each for Old Lyme (16-1). Goalie Hannah Guenther made 20 saves.

The Wildcats split their season series with Old Saybrook, with the Rams handing Old Lyme its only loss of the season 10-7 on May 5. Old Lyme edged Old Saybrook 6-5 on May 12.

“I'm really happy there's an actual playoff,” Sweitzer said of the Shoreline tournament, which is being held for the first time.

Sweitzer, who was an all-state selection last year as the team's center midfielder when Old Lyme reached the semifinals of the Class S state tournament, tore her ACL last fall while running during a lacrosse clinic.

She missed basketball season and was unsure whether she'd play lacrosse either, returning to the field in a little more than six months from the date of her surgery on Oct. 31.

She attended Yuhas Performance Training in Niantic, lifting weights to build her upper body strength before she could run, then adding squats and dead lifts.

“It feels great,” said Sweitzer, who moved to attack this season to join Cowell, a second team all-state honoree last year as a freshman. “Better than before, … Hopefully I'm helping a little bit.”

“I think she helps make our line even more dynamic,” Old Lyme coach Emily Macione said. “With respect to her injury, we moved her to attack to give her knee a little less work. And just her experience as a player ... we have 10 sophomores on the team and most of them are starting. They got experience on JV last year, but they only played JV. We have a whole new lineup. Having Sloane back and our senior captain Alston Rountree back from ankle surgery does make a big difference.”

Old Lyme started Tuesday's game with goals by Sweitzer and Cowell before a shot by Morgan's Cat Goss made it 2-1.

Old Lyme, however, then launched a seven-goal run, its first of two in the game, to make it 9-1 and the Wildcats led 11-3 at halftime. Following its second string of seven straight, Old Lyme led 17-3 with 11 minutes, 44 seconds still to play. The game was contested with running time once the margin reached 10 goals.

“There's certainly still work to do, make sure our passes are crisp, make sure we get every ground ball we can, but as a team things are going very nicely,” said Macione, in her second season at Old Lyme.

“(Against Old Saybrook), we're definitely evenly matched. They have some strong players and a very good goalie and I think so do we. It makes it a real competitive matchup. It's 1-to-1.”

v.fulkerson@theday.com

Twitter: @vickieattheday