Lake Brantley’s girls lacrosse team is right back where they left off last season. Well, sort of.

The Patriots earned a third-straight trip to the state semifinals with an 18-10 win in a second round play-in game at Lake Highland Prep on Friday.

Chelsea Pinneke scored two goals inside the opening five minutes to give the Patriots an early lead and the Highlanders were unable to recover.

Caroline Lamere, last season’s area player of the year, led the attack with four goals and four assists while Katie Trahanas added four goals and an assist. Pinneke and Jackie Schaefer finished with three goals each in the win.

Twice Lake Brantley held 10-point leads in the second half after building an 8-2 advantage at the break, but second-year coach Hanna Hopkins sees more work to be done moving forward in regards to the team’s draw controls and ground balls.

“Not our best game. But it’s a win, so we’ll take it,” said Hopkins, who played on the 2001 Patriots’ state title team before going on to play for the Florida Gators in Gainesville.

Former high school teammates of Hopkins, Casey Foote and Aubrey White, join former Gator goalie Jen Dunham on the coaching staff.

Lake Brantley (15-3) finished runners-up in the state a year ago. They’ll now meet up with Park Vista on Friday at West Orange High School for the chance to return to the title game. Winter Springs plays Vero Beach in the other semifinal.

The state championship game is scheduled for Saturday, April 24 at 5 p.m. at West Orange.

“We’ve been working since the state championship ended last year to have another chance at next weekend,” said Hopkins. “And we have the team to do it. It’s just a matter of getting it done.”

Trahanas leads the team with 66 goals on the year while midfielders Pinneke and Kaleigh Henry are considered two of the biggest threats on either ends of the field. Senior goalie Heather Gable has benefited from the protection of defenders Christina Monahan and Amira El-Behiri.

Lake Highland Prep (11-6) entered the contest having pulled out close wins over Timber Creek and Bishop Moore to keep its season alive by way of a vastly improved defensive unit.

But they played with their back against the wall for much of the night on Friday as they were overwhelmed early on by swift passes and quick strikes by the Patriots.

Before the game, second-year head coach Amy Demers said the team was well aware of whom they were in comparison to the ever-consistent Patriots, and that after the initial goal of winning a district title (following a two-year drought) was reached, that “everything else is sort of icing on the cake.”

Tyler Thomas led the Highlanders with three goals in the final game of the season. Polly Peck and Elyese Johnson each scored twice. Other players coming up big for LHP this year were Kellie Mitchell and Lauren Gierke.