By Tyler Maheu, Staff Sportswriter
“I’m beyond proud and honored to coach such a great team.”
Amanda Hull’s girls lacrosse squad has been no stranger to success the past few seasons, having reached the state title game in two of the last three seasons. But her Wasps had yet to seal the deal. That all changed this past Sunday, as Woodstock finally secured a state championship win with an 11-6 victory over the U-32 Raiders.
The two teams took very different paths to the Vermont Principals’ Association’s Division II title matchup. Woodstock, the number-one seed, eased through the playoffs with dominant 17-4 wins over both Rutland and Harwood. Two-seed U-32, out of East Montpelier, scorched Green Mountain 15-3 in the opening round, but had to escape defeat in a game with Mount Abraham, by a score of 16-13, to punch its ticket to the finals. Back on May 13, the two teams faced off in Woodstock. The Wasps won that game 20-10.
Virtue Field at the University of Vermont was the site for Sunday’s championship clash, directly across from the school’s field hockey pitch, which caused unease for some Wasps. That was where, in the fall, Woodstock suffered a heartbreaker in the field hockey state championship, losing 2-1 in double overtime to Montpelier.
“I think I had a lot of emotions coming into today,” said senior captain Aleks Cirovic, who starred on the field hockey team. “Good emotions, bad emotions, scary emotions.” Despite her fears, Cirovic and her “psychic ability” gave her and her teammates confidence. “I usually get this feeling in my stomach, and I talk about it a lot with my teammates. I always have this feeling,” she explained. “I knew that this game would turn out in our favor, and I just tried to remember the entire time that this feels right, this feels like our time, I know that this is gonna go our way today, and we’re gonna come up with a win.”
Seniors Aleks Cirovic and Alexis Audsley shower their coaches with a celebratory ice bath.
While Cirovic followed her gut feeling, others couldn’t avoid the pre-game jitters on the long bus ride up north, at least at first. “I was definitely a little bit nervous,” said sophomore Sarea Beardsley. “But, we got hyped on the bus. We were doing glitter in our hair, and I was getting all ready. I was hyped, I was ready.”
Beardsley looked ready from the start, scoring Woodstock’s first goal of the game after circling behind the net, a move she would use for her second goal later in the first quarter. “I think I was going behind the crease and I was finding those lanes,” she explained. “And I would take it, and whenever I would, I’d shoot low to high, and I’d score.”
“She has really stepped up to end the season,” said Hull. “Aleks and Betta have seen a lot of hard pressure, and she has found the gaps to fill in. She’s got such good intensity, and she’s got great drive. She’s really stepped up and has been doing awesome.”
Also adding goals in the first for Woodstock were junior Victoria Johnson and Cirovic. U-32 junior Hannah Drury scored twice for the Raiders to keep the game close through one, 4-2. The Raiders took control of the game in quarter two.
While Woodstock’s Betta Cirovic added a goal to increase her team’s lead to 5-2 in the quarter’s opening seconds, U-32 controlled the rest of the quarter, putting up four goals to take a 6-5 lead into the halftime break. The team’s collapsing defense in front of the net made it tough for the youngest Cirovic to find her usual lanes to the net.
“I think at the beginning, you know, I’m a big scorer for our team, so I was kinda frustrated with it,” she said of the tough, Jordan Rules-esque defense. But the sophomore has been hard at work to add to her game all year, and she realized what she needed to do to help the team win. “Maybe in the second quarter I realized that I don’t have to be the one scoring,” she said. “I can use my good defensive skills, I can check, I can get ground balls. So I kind of realized that I can be used as a passer, I don’t have to be driving as long as other people are.”
Down 6-5 going into the half, Woodstock found themselves in the unfamiliar position of soul-searching. “We said that we are here for a reason,” said Hull on what was discussed during the break. “And that no matter what the score is, we are gonna fight with our absolute best to get through this game. We just made a decision, this is the last half of all of our seasons, and we needed to fight.”
Aleks Cirovic said the team talked about needing to come out strong, especially against U-32’s reputation of being a second-half team. The Colgate University-bound senior immediately put her money where her mouth was.
Nineteen seconds into the second half, Cirovic won a draw before sprinting straight down the middle of the field and slamming the ball into the back of the net to tie the game. After a Johnson goal recaptured the lead, 7-6, she would add two more goals in the quarter, each punctuated with an emphatic show of emotion. “I remember I had the ball in my stick and I was like ‘I’m going to go’,” she said. “I’m doing this for myself, I’m doing this for my teammates because I knew that just one goal would make us excited, because that’s all it takes to shift our momentum.”
Powering her second-half takeover was the knowledge that there was no tomorrow. “It’s my senior year, this is the last Woodstock lacrosse game I’m ever going to play,” she said. “I wanted to do it for my coaches, I wanted to do it for my teammates, I wanted to do it for my family. I wasn’t really thinking about myself. I was thinking about wanting to make everyone around me happy. I want us to win.”
She continued. “I was just so tired, and really happy. I just had to keep going. I decided I’m gonna do this for everyone around me, and everyone who loves me and who I care about.”
“She’s been such a leader on this team the last couple of years, but especially this season,” said Hull. “And I think once she wants to get it done, she’s going to get it done. And I think that she decided that this was it, we’re gonna do this, and it was a great momentum swing for us.”
Her sister, Betta, scored her second goal of the contest, and senior Maeve Roylance added another to put the Wasps ahead 11-6 going into the final quarter. Following this offensive explosion, it was the defense and senior goalkeeper Jessica Baumann’s turn to slam the door shut.
Baumann allowed no goals in the second half and recorded eight saves on the afternoon. Her defense in front of her also shone, stonewalling many of the Raiders’ advances and making clutch steals. “They just dominated it,” said their head coach. “They decided that nobody was coming into the eight (meter mark), and Jess was a brick wall. She was on it on every single shot.”
She continued. “I can’t say enough. You know how the saying is offense wins games, defense wins championships? That’s exactly what happened today. I mean, the defense held so strong in the second half that they won the championship this afternoon.”
In the game’s closing moments, Woodstock’s offense passed the ball expertly to run the clock. Then, as the final buzzer sounded, the bench stormed onto the field and met Baumann and the rest of the Wasps in a pile of exaltation, tears, and smiles. Finally, the Wasps, especially the team’s seven seniors, had reached the mountain top.
In the aftermath of players receiving their medals and trophy from league officials, the Wasps sprinted to the grandstands to celebrate with the Woodstock faithful who had made the trip. Then they celebrated with a Gatorade shower of their coaching staff, before letting the emotions flow.
“I wanted this so much, especially for my sister, who’s graduating this year,” said Betta Cirovic. “I wanted this win for her. I knew we deserved this. I’m just so happy that we won.” Her excitement was echoed by fellow underclassmen. “It feels amazing,” said Beardsley. “So happy, this is awesome.”
For Aleks Cirovic, the win brought a sense of relief and pride. “I just feel so proud of everyone,” she said. “It’s just so nice to end my senior year off with such a good win, a dominant win, I might add. It’s just a sense of relief.”
She heaped praise on her teammates who helped her ride off into the sunset a champion. “I’m so proud of everyone. This one isn’t about me individually, it’s about the entire team and how hard we work, because we’ve grown so much since our first game, and I’m so proud.”
