Once the Barnegat girls lacrosse team had earned its spot in the semifinals of the NJSIAA South Jersey Group II, the Bengals’ next obstacle could have been likened to Mount Kilimanjaro, which protrudes into the sky above Africa some 19,340 feet.

That mountain was top-seeded Haddonfield, which hadn’t lost in a sectional tournament since 2016 and entered the teams’ contest on June 2 as a five-time defending sectional champ, either in Group II (2017, 2018 and 2019) or Group I (2021 and 2022), with…