EXETER – The Hawks play their best lacrosse when they are having fun, but at halftime of Sunday’s Division III boys’ championship game, Hopkinton found itself in a not so fun position – the wrong end of a five-goal deficit.
No. 2 Hopkinton (14-3) came out of the locker room fired up and determined to enjoy what remained of the title game, twice trimming the Hawks’ deficit to a single goal, but in the end the No. 4 Laconia Sachems came out on top with a 12-10 victory to win the D-III crown on Sunday at Exeter High School’s Bill Ball Stadium.
“Sometimes things don’t turn out the way you want them to, but I’m proud of these guys and the way we played,” said senior captain Aidan Burns. “The way we came out in the second half, it took a lot of grit. We dug as hard as we could. Winning takes all of you, but guarantees nothing. Sometimes you come up short.”
The No. 4 Sachems (14-3), fresh off handing No. 1 Campbell its first loss of the season in the semifinals, 7-6, Laconia came in hot.
Goals in the first five minutes of the game from Carson Tucker (three goals, assist) and senior Evan Rollins (two goals) put the Sachems up 2-0 early.
Hopkinton seniors Josh Duval and Ryan Brown (three goals, three ground balls) scored with 6:24 and 4:02 left in the first quarter to tie the game, 2-2, but Laconia senior Evan Carignan (two goals, assist) tallied a goal 35 seconds later to give the lead right back to the Sachems to end the first quarter.
Senior Quinn Whitehead (four goals, assist) tied the game, 3-3, 57 seconds into the second quarter, but Laconia went on a tear after that, scoring five consecutive goals for an 8-3 halftime lead.
Senior Cole Roy (four goals) had three of those goals and classmate Keaton Beck had a huge interception and led the ensuing counterattack that resulted in a Lucas Beane goal while Hopkinton had the man-advantage, a play that really took the wind out from beneath the Hawks’ wings.
“We kind of got into our own heads and weren’t playing our game,” Hopkinton head coach Deacon Blue said. “We tried to get the flow going, but just weren’t doing that. We weren’t getting our slides on D, our ride wasn’t quite there. (Laconia was) outworking us on ground balls, we threw the ball away. There were a few things we did wrong.”
With 13 seniors on Hopkinton’s roster, an experienced head coach that’s been in five championship games in 10 years as the Hawks’ top man and a squad with an impressive record over the last couple of years, Hopkinton clearly knows how to play lacrosse well.
So coach Blue’s halftime talk wasn’t about X’s and O’s.
“When we talked in the locker room it was about our mind state, our attitude, our energy, not so much what we were doing,” Blue said. “We knew what to do, but I think it’s a mental thing at that point. If we’re not having fun, we’re not playing well. We tried to fire them up at half and they came out gangbusters in the second half.”
Whitehead and fellow senior Ryan Brown combined for three goals in the first 1:37 of the second half to cut Laconia’s lead to 8-6.
The Sachems caught a break when Hopkinton senior goaltender Eli Standefer (14 saves) was charged with a controversial unnecessary roughness penalty, forcing him to come off the field for one minute while serving the penalty and Roy netted his fourth goal with a backup in between the pipes to make it 9-6.
Sophomore Patrick Buss and Whitehead scored a pair for the Hawks to cut Laconia’s lead to 9-8, but Carignan closed out the third with another Laconia goal and Tucker scored again 41 seconds into the fourth.
Down 11-8, the Hawks did a better job of maintaining possession, with Whitehead and Burns scoring to cut the deficit to one, 11-10, with 2:53 remaining in the game.
The Hawks called a timeout with 1:55 left and tried to set something up on offense, but a couple shots were fired wide, a couple turnovers were forced by the Sachems’ D and Rollins took a long pass from senior goalie Camden Harriman (eight saves) and scored with 45.9 seconds left to end any hope of Hopkinton completing the comeback.
“They forced us to make some mistakes,” Burns said. “It was more a game of mistakes, whoever made fewer mistakes. They made fewer mistakes and came out with a win.”
While their careers in a Hawk uniform aren’t ending with a championship, the 13 Hopkinton seniors can leave with the knowledge that they’ve helped raise the program back to the championship-caliber standard it was pre-COVID.
Hopkinton won three state titles from 2017-19 before the 2020 season was canceled and the Hawks bowed out in the semifinals with a 9-5 record last year.
“They saw what it took to get there and although we fell off a little bit, they still held that in the back of their heads and they came into this year knowing what it would take,” said Blue, referring to his seniors who were freshmen when the Hawks won the championship in 2019. “They had the right attitudes and kept the guys working hard. They did a great job at that, being leaders.”
Burns was one of the few then-freshmen who played in the 2019 championship game.
“It obviously isn’t just the seniors, it’s the underclassmen as well,” Burns said. “We build this team from the next guy up. The upperclassmen take care of the younger guys, so it’s a whole team thing. I’m proud of what the seniors have done, but it’s a team effort.”