SCHUYLERVILLE, N.Y. (NEWS10) — As hard as it is to reach the top, it’s even harder to stay there.
Since winning last year’s Class A championship, the Saratoga Springs girls lacrosse team has had a target on their back. They got everybody’s best shot this year – playing in six, one-goal games in the regular season – but found a way to the No. 1 seed in the sectional tournament. Tuesday night in Schuylerville, the Blue Streaks found their way to victory over Colonie in the tournament final, and are still on top Class A.
Saratoga managed to overcome a three-goal deficit late in the third quarter, closing the game on a 4-0 run, en route to a 11-10 victory over the second-seeded Raiders.
“Coming into this game, we all talked about our “why?” said head coach Jennifer Furze. “”Why do we want this as bad as we do?” The girls were all saying “a repeat”; this is history for our school. We’ve never won back-to-back titles like this.”
As if the six regular season one-goal games weren’t enough, both Saratoga’s sectional games were decided by one goal. Prior to Tuesday’s championship game, the Blue Streaks took down No. 4 Shen in the semifinals, 12-11.
“This was a crazy season; a really exciting season,” said Saratoga senior attack Carly Wise. “Our goal the whole entire year was, “let’s do it (win a section title) again.” It feels like déjà vu; it’s so exciting that we got to accomplish it a second time. I didn’t want [my] senior year to be over, so…we keep goin’.”
The two sides went blow-for-blow for the first 24 minutes of action. Neither team led by more than two goals at any time.
Colonie closed the opening half on 3-0 run, though, punctuated by a Natalie Boardman free-position goal that gave the Raiders an 8-7 edge at the half – their first lead of the night.
Colonie built on that run out of the break, netting the first two goals of the third quarter, growing its margin to a game-high three goals.
Just when it seemed like the Raiders were going to take that three-goal cushion into the final frame, Saratoga’s Janie Baringer struck with 18.5 seconds on the clock – a goal that Wise believe drastically shifted the momentum for their team.
“Every timeout we had to focus on “energy up,”” said Wise. “It happened in the Shen game too – once there was something that happened that was really good, the energy just skyrocketed, and that’s what happened here too. We had one really good goal, and the energy was just up. And we ran with it from there.”
That “energy up” resulted in two Saratoga goals within the span of 1:02 to start the fourth quarter – the first from Wise, and the second from Faith Britton off a feed from Sarah Berls, which tied the game at 10.
Just over two minutes later, the Blue Streak defense forced a turnover. Camryn Barthelmas scooped up the ground ball, took it nearly the length of the field and fired a shot on Emma Taylor that was saved. But the ball caromed out to Wise, who put away the second-chance opportunity for what proved to be the game-winner – her game-high sixth goal of the contest.
Saratoga held Colonie scoreless for the entirety of the fourth quarter with a balance of strong defense and cautious offense – particularly under the five-minute mark when the Blue Streaks managed to essentially play “keep away,” and ran nearly four minutes off the clock before Colonie finally got the ball back.
With under a minute to play, the Raiders pushed down the field, and Boardman drew a foul with less than a second remaining. Her free-position try missed wide right of the cage, though, and the Blue Streak bench rushed the field to celebrate the program history-making moment.
The players clearly got the message that Furze relayed to them ahead of that decisive fourth quarter.
“I emphasized strong lax IQ,” said Furze. “”We really need to make sure we’re working the clock, and we need to dig deep. And think of your “Why?” Put that in your head, and just visualize this win,” because I knew they were capable.”
Wise’s six goals puts her three away from 300 in her career. Barringer tallied two goals and an assist for a three-point performance. Along with Wise, Barringer and Britton, Berls added a goal along with Emery Judge.
Boardman posted a team-best four-goal outing for Colonie. Riley Lemerise and Keira McFeeley both found the back of the net twice; Katherine Boardman and Avery Connolly once.
Saratoga (13-4) is headed back to the state tournament, where it will meet up with the winner of a sub-regional matchup between Section IX’s Pine Bush and Section I’s Suffern. Suffern knocked the Blue Streaks out of the tournament last year.
Saratoga will have “home-field” advantage for that regional game on Saturday, June 1, playing at Queensbury High School. Opening draw is already set for 3:00 p.m.
This was Colonie’s first-ever appearance in a sectional championship game. The Raiders conclude their best season in program history with a 7-6 overall record, and will return a solid core of talent, including Natalie Boardman (sophom*ore), starting goalie Emma Taylor (junior) and Lemerise (eighth grader).
