
A Win For The Ages
May 31, 2021 | Lacrosse, #ForBoston Files
The lacrosse program's rise met its superior end on Sunday with its first national championship.
Acacia Walker-Weinstein was no stranger to the tears or hugs following women's lacrosse's national championship game. She experienced them openly after the 2017 iteration at Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, and she felt the tears and hugs again in 2018 and 2019 at the games played at Stony Brook and Johns Hopkins. She knew there was an overall exhaustion that comes from playing in the emotional roller coaster of a national championship, but nothing could have prepared her for the different brand of feelings that flooded the 2021 game on Sunday.
Maybe that's because she was standing in the middle of Johnny Unitas Stadium as the head coach of a national champion, and the tears were for the celebration, not the consolation.
Charlotte North scored six times to break the single-season goals record, and the BC defense held its ACC rival Syracuse to two goals in the second half as the Eagles defeated the Orange, 16-10, to clinch their first national championship. It was the first women's NCAA championship in Boston College history and the first title since the men's hockey tournament in 2012.
"I'm so proud of the team," Walker-Weinstein said. "I feel so lucky to be surrounded by such incredible people. The players have been remarkable this year despite all the adversity. To see them finish the job on behalf of the school, each other, all the alumni, all the classes that got here that couldn't win before, all of this is for them."
The game marked the fourth meeting over the last month between the two teams after the ACC reconfigured its schedule around the COVID-19 pandemic. The Eagles and Orange split the first two games in the last weekend of the regular season before Syracuse beat BC in the ACC Championship, 19-17. The 2-1 advantage slotted the teams on opposite ends of the NCAA Tournament bracket, but they met on Sunday as the No. 3 and No. 4 overall seeds after BC eliminated No. 1 North Carolina and Syracuse defeated No. 2 Northwestern.
They picked right up from where they left off with an exciting first half featuring 17 goals and nearly a half dozen lead changes. The largest lead of the half never got higher than two goals, and it happened in the first seven minutes of the game when Cara Urbank and North scored goals within a minute of each other.Â
The multi-goal lead only lasted 90 seconds before Emma Tyrrell brought the Orange back within one, and neither team was capable of grabbing any brand of advantage before the halftime interlude until Caitlyn Mossman scored with 1:31 remaining to put the Eagles back up, 9-7. Even then, Syracuse scored before halftime to cut the lead to 9-8 on Emma Ward's free position, 43rd goal of the season.
It was the first time BC led into the half in any of their four consecutive national championship game appearances, and it anchored the Eagles into the second half. They opened the period with three unanswered goals, the latter of which was North's 100th goal of the season, and the defense clamped Syracuse's offense for almost 13 minutes.Â
The Orange finally got on the board with a goal by Maddy Baxter, but North's record-breaking, 101st goal of the season slammed the door on any forward momentum. The defense and goalkeeper Rachel Hall took over from there, holding the Orange off the board until Meaghan Tyrrell cut a then-six goal lead to five with 7:25 remaining. They never got closer, and a woman-up goal by North with a minute left in the game punctuated the final stamp on a national championship run.
"We had to play an aggressive attack with an even more aggressive defense," Walker-Weinstein said. "They slid on a string. They communicated well. They were aggressive. They attacked the weave. We had a hyper-awareness of their top players, and our goaltending was amazing. Rachel was really focused, and we had to be excellent to stop the Syracuse offense, especially (since) that weave is impossible to stop."
"I give so much credit to our defense," said Hollie Schleicher. "We're such a new unit this year. I think it was just trust, intensity, focus. Rachel Hall is unstoppable. It started off in that UNC game and carried into this game. We have so many people that have so many different roles, and I think we just meshed together and worked so hard. It just paid off."
The win stamped a historic run that elevated Boston College to the top of the lacrosse world from its humble beginnings in the 1990s. The program gained varsity status in 1992 and produced only two winning seasons in its first decade of existence. It didn't crack the 10-win barrier until head coach Shari Krasnoo's final season in 2005 and couldn't string consecutive seasons with a .500 or better record until Bowen Holden went 9-9 and 12-6 in 2009 and 2010.
Those roots laid the groundwork for the prosperous era that followed, but it wasn't until Acacia Walker's third season, in 2014, that BC broke through with a 15-6 record. The Eagles had only one All-America honoree prior to 2010, and Mikaela Rix joined Kristin Igoe as the only First Team members in 2014 and 2011, respectively. The first year with multiple First Team honorees came the next year in 2015 when Covie Stanwick and Sarah Mannelly reached the apex and built the first bridge of superstars from one year to another.
All four were nominated for the prestigious Tewaaraton Award, a foundation on which Sam Apuzzo found herself when she arrived on the college lacrosse scene in 2017. Apuzzo dominated to the tune of 278 career goals and shattered Stanwick's points record as the only two members of the 300-point club. She scored 129 points in the 2018 season and followed it up with 124 points in 2019, a year during which Kenzie Kent scored 127 points.
The individual numbers came as part of a larger team effort, and the glass ceiling shattered after years of pounding cracks in the barrier. The program that won two games in the Big East during the conference's early years in the 2000s endured its growing pains after it joined the ACC in 2006, but maintaining non-conference dominance helped BC catch its peers over a stretch in the 2010s.Â
A successful, 12-7 record under Holden enabled the first NCAA Tournament berth in program history, but a 3-2 finish in the ACC in 2013 was the first conference finish over .500. It too sent the team to the NCAA Tournament, and a 15-6 record the next year produced the first wins in the bracket when the Eagles knocked off both Bryant and Loyola.
It foreshadowed the oncoming storm that occurred in 2017 when BC won 17 games and advanced to both its first Final Four and its first national championship game. The Eagles lost to Maryland that year but returned twice more to the game's largest stage with sterling, 20-win seasons in 2018 and 2019.
There was just the issue of the elusive hardware. Despite all the wins, the Eagles never managed to win a championship as undefeated regular season titles ended in playoff disappointment in both the conference and national finals. After the 2020 season ended in cancellation due to COVID-19, 2021 opened with a more muted public unveiling as the team transitioned out of its most recent success.Â
All of that changed on Sunday afternoon. The program once known for its three consecutive losses shook the heartbreak moniker and hoisted a trophy for the first time. Coaches and players who heard the talk but opted to maintain laser focus on the present finally reveled in victory, and the coach who helped build a national championship caliber team likewise felt the tears of happiness over sadness.
"Those losses (in the national championship) really taught us a lot," Walker-Weinstein said. "We were destroyed by it temporarily, but we picked up the pieces, and we had to pivot here and there to make decision and persist and stay together to find new ways to win.
For her part, Walker-Weinstein now joins John "Snooks" Kelley and Jerry York as the only coaches at Boston College to win an NCAA championship. She is the first and, to this point, only woman to achieve the feat and the first non-hockey sport to win a national crown.Â
"I think (losing) was all part of the process," she said. "I talked to Jerry York after the 2019 loss, and he's the winningest hockey coach ever. He just said to trust the process, that all these things are about the process. At some point, at the right time, divine timing will come in, and things will fall into place."
Maybe that's because she was standing in the middle of Johnny Unitas Stadium as the head coach of a national champion, and the tears were for the celebration, not the consolation.
Charlotte North scored six times to break the single-season goals record, and the BC defense held its ACC rival Syracuse to two goals in the second half as the Eagles defeated the Orange, 16-10, to clinch their first national championship. It was the first women's NCAA championship in Boston College history and the first title since the men's hockey tournament in 2012.
"I'm so proud of the team," Walker-Weinstein said. "I feel so lucky to be surrounded by such incredible people. The players have been remarkable this year despite all the adversity. To see them finish the job on behalf of the school, each other, all the alumni, all the classes that got here that couldn't win before, all of this is for them."
The game marked the fourth meeting over the last month between the two teams after the ACC reconfigured its schedule around the COVID-19 pandemic. The Eagles and Orange split the first two games in the last weekend of the regular season before Syracuse beat BC in the ACC Championship, 19-17. The 2-1 advantage slotted the teams on opposite ends of the NCAA Tournament bracket, but they met on Sunday as the No. 3 and No. 4 overall seeds after BC eliminated No. 1 North Carolina and Syracuse defeated No. 2 Northwestern.
They picked right up from where they left off with an exciting first half featuring 17 goals and nearly a half dozen lead changes. The largest lead of the half never got higher than two goals, and it happened in the first seven minutes of the game when Cara Urbank and North scored goals within a minute of each other.Â
The multi-goal lead only lasted 90 seconds before Emma Tyrrell brought the Orange back within one, and neither team was capable of grabbing any brand of advantage before the halftime interlude until Caitlyn Mossman scored with 1:31 remaining to put the Eagles back up, 9-7. Even then, Syracuse scored before halftime to cut the lead to 9-8 on Emma Ward's free position, 43rd goal of the season.
It was the first time BC led into the half in any of their four consecutive national championship game appearances, and it anchored the Eagles into the second half. They opened the period with three unanswered goals, the latter of which was North's 100th goal of the season, and the defense clamped Syracuse's offense for almost 13 minutes.Â
The Orange finally got on the board with a goal by Maddy Baxter, but North's record-breaking, 101st goal of the season slammed the door on any forward momentum. The defense and goalkeeper Rachel Hall took over from there, holding the Orange off the board until Meaghan Tyrrell cut a then-six goal lead to five with 7:25 remaining. They never got closer, and a woman-up goal by North with a minute left in the game punctuated the final stamp on a national championship run.
"We had to play an aggressive attack with an even more aggressive defense," Walker-Weinstein said. "They slid on a string. They communicated well. They were aggressive. They attacked the weave. We had a hyper-awareness of their top players, and our goaltending was amazing. Rachel was really focused, and we had to be excellent to stop the Syracuse offense, especially (since) that weave is impossible to stop."
"I give so much credit to our defense," said Hollie Schleicher. "We're such a new unit this year. I think it was just trust, intensity, focus. Rachel Hall is unstoppable. It started off in that UNC game and carried into this game. We have so many people that have so many different roles, and I think we just meshed together and worked so hard. It just paid off."
The win stamped a historic run that elevated Boston College to the top of the lacrosse world from its humble beginnings in the 1990s. The program gained varsity status in 1992 and produced only two winning seasons in its first decade of existence. It didn't crack the 10-win barrier until head coach Shari Krasnoo's final season in 2005 and couldn't string consecutive seasons with a .500 or better record until Bowen Holden went 9-9 and 12-6 in 2009 and 2010.
Those roots laid the groundwork for the prosperous era that followed, but it wasn't until Acacia Walker's third season, in 2014, that BC broke through with a 15-6 record. The Eagles had only one All-America honoree prior to 2010, and Mikaela Rix joined Kristin Igoe as the only First Team members in 2014 and 2011, respectively. The first year with multiple First Team honorees came the next year in 2015 when Covie Stanwick and Sarah Mannelly reached the apex and built the first bridge of superstars from one year to another.
All four were nominated for the prestigious Tewaaraton Award, a foundation on which Sam Apuzzo found herself when she arrived on the college lacrosse scene in 2017. Apuzzo dominated to the tune of 278 career goals and shattered Stanwick's points record as the only two members of the 300-point club. She scored 129 points in the 2018 season and followed it up with 124 points in 2019, a year during which Kenzie Kent scored 127 points.
The individual numbers came as part of a larger team effort, and the glass ceiling shattered after years of pounding cracks in the barrier. The program that won two games in the Big East during the conference's early years in the 2000s endured its growing pains after it joined the ACC in 2006, but maintaining non-conference dominance helped BC catch its peers over a stretch in the 2010s.Â
A successful, 12-7 record under Holden enabled the first NCAA Tournament berth in program history, but a 3-2 finish in the ACC in 2013 was the first conference finish over .500. It too sent the team to the NCAA Tournament, and a 15-6 record the next year produced the first wins in the bracket when the Eagles knocked off both Bryant and Loyola.
It foreshadowed the oncoming storm that occurred in 2017 when BC won 17 games and advanced to both its first Final Four and its first national championship game. The Eagles lost to Maryland that year but returned twice more to the game's largest stage with sterling, 20-win seasons in 2018 and 2019.
There was just the issue of the elusive hardware. Despite all the wins, the Eagles never managed to win a championship as undefeated regular season titles ended in playoff disappointment in both the conference and national finals. After the 2020 season ended in cancellation due to COVID-19, 2021 opened with a more muted public unveiling as the team transitioned out of its most recent success.Â
All of that changed on Sunday afternoon. The program once known for its three consecutive losses shook the heartbreak moniker and hoisted a trophy for the first time. Coaches and players who heard the talk but opted to maintain laser focus on the present finally reveled in victory, and the coach who helped build a national championship caliber team likewise felt the tears of happiness over sadness.
"Those losses (in the national championship) really taught us a lot," Walker-Weinstein said. "We were destroyed by it temporarily, but we picked up the pieces, and we had to pivot here and there to make decision and persist and stay together to find new ways to win.
For her part, Walker-Weinstein now joins John "Snooks" Kelley and Jerry York as the only coaches at Boston College to win an NCAA championship. She is the first and, to this point, only woman to achieve the feat and the first non-hockey sport to win a national crown.Â
"I think (losing) was all part of the process," she said. "I talked to Jerry York after the 2019 loss, and he's the winningest hockey coach ever. He just said to trust the process, that all these things are about the process. At some point, at the right time, divine timing will come in, and things will fall into place."
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