STATE GIRLS LACROSSE PLAYOFFS: Spartans stop Crusaders to earn shot at state title
Published 2:16 pm Friday, May 15, 2015
It was another big win for Big Blue.
And another demon exorcised for the Spartan girls lacrosse team.
The Spartans will play for the state title Friday for the first time since 2012 after beating Eastside Catholic 12-10 in a come-from-behind win Wednesday at Memorial Stadium.
The Spartans will now play Issaquah, the defending state champions and the only team to beat Bainbridge this year.
It was another dramatic win for BHS. The Spartans fell behind early and trailed until Paige Brigham scored the go-ahead goal with 4:04 left to play in the first half that broke a 4-4 tie and put Bainbridge in front for good.
During the last matchup against the Crusaders, last season, Bainbridge battled to a draw with EC.
Not so this year.
“It was a relief for our program,” Bainbridge Coach Tami Tommila said of the semifinal win. “It was another case where we needed to overcome playing them again; last year we tied them. It was a very scrappy game and a very physical game.
“I didn’t want to play them in the regular season this year because I was really concerned about our players,” she said.
Tommila credited the referees for keeping the game under control.
“I felt like our players were safe, and they kept poised the whole game. That was the difference,” Tommila said. “They stayed calm.”
Brigham, who finished with four goals and five assists, said the coaching staff told them to expect an ebb-and-flow game.
“Yeah, this game is going to be up and down, but we’re here together, we’re here as a unit, and with our great coaching staff behind us and all of our fans, we’re going to come together. We’re going to pull through,” she said.
The victory saw the Spartans giving the Crusaders’ their first loss in 14 games. EC had a string of 13 straight victories after its season opener loss to Issaquah.
It was a benchmark win not only for the season, but for the program.
“Our team really came together and I’m so proud to be a part of this program,” Brigham said.
“I think this really reflected who we are, not only as a team, but as a program, too. I’m just very excited we get to move onto the next round,” she said.
It was a physical game from start to finish, and the Spartans led 6-5 at intermission against a very aggressive EC team.
“We got the ball in the hands of the people we had to,” Tommila said.
“Kelly [Coffyn, in goal] had some really important saves; our defense made some really important stops,” she added.
Coffyn finished with six saves. And the Spartans held the Crusader’s Ashley Blanton, the No. 4 scorer in the state, scoreless.
It was also the 12th straight win for BHS since the team was outlasted by state champ Issaquah 16–10 in their March 20 match up at the Skyline Community Fields.
Besides Brigham, four other Spartans scored in the contest.
Mackenzie Chapman added four goals of her own, and one assist, while teammate Sonia Olson contributed a pair of goals.
Kyra Havill and Robin Hilderman each added a goal and an assist.
Friday’s state title game will start at 7 p.m. at Charlie Acosta Field on the campus of the Eastside Catholic School in Sammamish.
Quarterfinals: Bainbridge vs. Lions
It wasn’t revenge, and it wasn’t a grudge match.
Just call it great lacrosse.
Paige Brigham scored six goals — including a pair in the game’s final minutes to answer a late Lions comeback — as Bainbridge beat Lakeside 16-12 in a girls lacrosse state quarterfinals playoff thriller at Memorial Stadium Monday.
The Lions, coming in ranked at No. 10, bore no resemblance to the team that fell to the No. 2 Spartans 16-2 at the close of the regular season. The game was tied three times, and there were three lead changes, in the first half as the evenly matched teams traded blows.
“That was a Lakeside-Bainbridge lacrosse game. We should have charged people to watch that,” said Bainbridge Coach Tami Tommila.
Bainbridge got on the board first as Robin Hilderman split the pipes with the first of her three goals at the 24:10 mark.
Casey Clarke answered for Lakeside less than two minutes later to tie the game at 1-all.
Sonia Olson put the Spartans back ahead, 2-1, as Bainbridge capitalized on a 3-second violation by the Lions.
The lead didn’t last long, as Avery Frankenberg scored roughly a minute later to even the score again at 2-2 with 19:08 left to play in the half.
Two minutes later, Lakeside retook the lead and went up, 4-2, after Clarke’s second goal of the evening. Her teammates started dancing on the sidelines as Spartan fans sat in stunned silence.
The dance party was short-lived, however, as the Spartans battled back and took a 5-4 lead after Hilderman’s goal at 11:38.
The Lions evened the contest again at 6:49, but freshman Mackenzie Chapman put the Spartans back in front to stay, 6-5, with her first goal of the night a minute and a half later. The night was far from over, though. BHS led 8-5 at the break, and Chapman helped push the Spartans to their largest lead of the night.
Lakeside never quit, though, and scored three goals over the span of two minutes. The last of them, a goal by Leah Druker, her fourth, cut Bainbridge’s advantage to 14-12 with 5:29 left to play.
Loose balls also seemed to be going the Lions’ way all night. Lakeside had twice as many ground balls as Bainbridge, with 16, and slightly more draw controls (15 to 14) and had nine caused turnovers to the Spartans’ 2.
In the end, it was one of the Spartans’ eight seniors who stepped up to stop the surge from Lakeside.
Brigham broke the Lions’ scoring streak with a momentum-killing goal at the 4:40 mark and the Spartans kept Lakeside scoreless the rest of the way to earn the win.
“This was a great opportunity for us to play a game like that now,” Coach Tommila said. “It just doesn’t get any easier when you go to semifinals or to state. You’ve got to be able to ride those different emotions and stay together. And they did to the end. I was proud of them.”
And the other side, as well. Tommila made her way over to the Lions sideline and gave out plenty of consolatory hugs after the game.
“Our Lakeside friends, the seniors, are hurting right now. And we know what that’s like because we had seniors last year and it’s exactly what happened. We got knocked out by them in the playoffs. That was really hard for our kids,” she said.
“Today’s game wasn’t about revenge or anything like that,” Tommila added. “It was just about a new beginning for this team in the playoffs.”
With the win, Bainbridge advanced to Wednesday’s semifinals for a home matchup against Eastside Catholic. The Crusaders beat Puyallup 20-8 in the opening round and rousted Roosevelt 13-5 in the quarterfinals.
The loss ended Lakeside’s season.
“One team has to lose, and one team is going to win. And we knew that,” Tommila said. “But we wanted to make sure it was going to be us winning tonight.”
“I’m just proud of them for staying the course,” she said of her Spartans. “It was just a hard-fought game. Both teams really wanted it. And it showed. It was a really great lacrosse game.”
Paige finished with six goals and four assists. Chapman added four goals, an assist and four draw controls.
Hilderman scored a hat trick and added two ground balls and a draw control.
Olson also scored three times and added three assists.
Also coming up big for Bainbridge was Hannah Maroni, who had three ground balls, two draw controls and a caused turnover.
First round: Bainbridge vs. Tides
Bainbridge blasted Gig Harbor 20-2 as the Spartans rolled over the Tides in the opening round of the state girls lacrosse championship tournament late last week at Memorial Stadium.
Eight Spartans scored in the contest, and Sonia Olson had a blockbuster performance for BHS with five goals, an assist and a ground ball.
Mackenzie Chapman doubled the offensive output of the visitors, and scored four goals in the contest. She also had two assists and tallied 10 draw controls.
Two Spartans each finished with a hat trick in the game.
Amy Willerford and Sophia Hagstormer had three goals each, and Willerford aslo had two ground balls and a draw control while Hagstormer added a ground ball and a draw control.
Robin Hilderman contributed two goals, two ground balls and a draw control, while teammates Ellen Carpenter, Kiera Havill and Maggie Sweeney added one goal each.
