Groton — So the Fitch High School girls' lacrosse season began precisely a week before with a win over defending Eastern Connecticut Conference tournament champion Stonington.

And since the Falcons couldn't exactly freeze time, perhaps giving themselves the opportunity to savor that one a little longer, they were forced to move ahead to game two on their schedule Thursday against Waterford.

Fitch didn't disappoint, keeping things rolling with a 17-5 victory over the Lancers behind five goals and three assists from Maggie O'Leary. That came on the heels of the 16-14 defeat of Stonington, meaning that this much we know: the Falcons can score.

O'Leary, a 5-foot-9 junior attack, scored her 100th career goal last season and is headed toward 200. First-year coach Michael Luethy calls her a "presence on the field." Fellow attack Zoe Pearse, a senior, added her 100th career goal in the win over Stonington. Pearse had two goals and an assist against Waterford.

"Plus with the other girls, we're pretty balanced," said Luethy, formerly an assistant with the Falcons. "We don't want to find ourselves having one or two (players) get shut down and we can't score. ... We had seven girls who scored last week, seven different girls. It's pretty distributed."

The Falcons had seven different goal scorers again Thursday.

Bridget O'Leary, a freshman, had four goals and assisted one of her sister Maggie's with 43 seconds remaining in the first half, giving the team an 8-3 lead. Bridget passed the ball in front of the goal and Maggie seamlessly caught it and scored on a leaping slam dunk. Maggie added a transition goal with 2 seconds left for a 9-3 lead at halftime.

Maddie Catlett and Rita Sefransky added two goals each. Junior goalie Molly Bresnahan finished with 14 saves.

"We've been practicing moving the ball fast and executing in transition," Pearse said. We all work well together moving the ball around. We definitely want to keep going. We did really well (against Waterford), but still it wasn't our best; we dropped a lot."

"We worked hard in the offseason," Maggie O'Leary said.

As it turns out, Luethy, whose two daughters are a part of the program — Caroline, a senior, is the Falcons' manager and scorer and Clair is a sophomore defender — has known most of the players on the team since they were in first and second grade. He coached them in youth lacrosse and with the Fitch program, where was an assistant for three seasons.

"It's a great group of kids," said Luethy, who called this season a continuation of what former head coach Jenna Tucchio started at Fitch.

"We're continuing with some of our offensive and defensive concepts we started. That's why I wanted the head coaching job, to have some continuity for these girls. This was the time. We're benefitting from the success of our youth program. They celebrate each other's success. The other day Zoe scored her 100th career goal; everybody celebrated."

The Falcons play their next game at Valley Regional on Saturday. Next week they venture into Eastern Connecticut Conference Division I territory with games against Woodstock Academy on Tuesday and defending champion East Lyme on Thursday.

"I want the girls to have the confidence they can play every time they step on the field," Luethy said.

Olivia Gianakos and Grace Briggs each scored two goals for Waterford (2-3).

v.fulkerson@theday.com