BOW – The result was never in doubt.
The Bow High girls’ lacrosse team opened up a 12-2 lead in the first 17 minutes of action on its way to a 19-8 victory over Hopkinton, the defending D-III champions, on Tuesday afternoon at Bow High School.
Bow senior Alex Larrabee led all scorers in the game with eight goals and five assists; senior Olivia Selleck added five goals of her own and four assists. On the other side, Hawks sophomore Sydney Westover had three goals, as did junior Sarah Chodosh.
Here are three notes from the season opener:
Larrabee proves tough to stop, especially when her teammates can find her: Committed to play NCAA Division I lacrosse at Colgate University, Larrabee kicked off her senior campaign emphatically with her eight-goal performance. But it’s not just her combination of size and speed that makes her hard to stop. As Bow head coach Chris Raabe articulated, she’s quite unpredictable.
“She has a lot of different moves with the stick,” Raabe said. “She brings it through all the levels. She’s got some fakes. She’s got good footwork, and her shot is wicked.”
Tuesday’s performance also wasn’t just Larrabee constantly racing to the net herself; her teammates set her up in strong positions as well. The Falcons assisted on 10 of their 19 goals in the game.
“We had quite a few assists,” Raabe said. “So that’s nice, when the whole team’s involved in the goal versus just one person barreling in.”
Hopkinton struggled to organize its defense: The more patient Bow was with the ball, the better off the Falcons (1-0) seemed to perform, with the Hawks (0-1) unable to sustain consistent pressure on defense. Bow players, especially Larrabee and Selleck, frequently found open space in front of the net that allowed for easy goals.
With only four upperclassman defenders, the Hawks will need to continue to gain more experience and focus on their defensive structure in practice, as co-head coach Gus Madden explained.
“When we made some changes in (our defense), you saw (improvement), where we pressured the goalie, and that caused some turnovers that got it back,” he said. “Just defensively and obviously getting the ball on the draw controls is key.”
With still most of the season ahead of them, and with Tuesday one of the few times the teams have been able to play outside, Hopkinton should have plenty of time to figure things out.
“Just hats off to Bow,” Madden said. “They played a great game, and I’m excited for our girls. We’ve got plenty of work to do.”
If these two teams meet again in the playoffs, expect them to look quite different: It’s hard to gather much information from one game, let alone a team’s first of the season, especially when weather’s forced more indoor practice than is ideal. While Raabe said she was pretty pleased with Bow’s performance, there were certainly some areas of rust that they need to work through.
“The ground balls,” she mentioned first. “I think this is our third or fourth time on the field, so I thought the ground balls on both sides, that’s just going to get better and better. Ground balls are tough. Our shot selection, I thought, was good. Sometimes we struggle with that.”
After Raabe had the offense take its foot off the gas a little with a 10-goal lead at various points, she thought it hindered her players’ rhythm.
“I think I slowed them down and then took them out of their games,” she said. “I just didn’t want to keep flying down and shooting.”
And for Hopkinton, winning draw controls will be a key priority moving forward. The Hawks’ inability to possess the ball much only put added pressure on their already inexperienced defense.
“Even the controls we did get, it was their back pressure that I thought made the difference in the game,” Madden said. “They had somebody coming from behind, so that caused at least three or four turnovers. That same back pressure on our side wasn’t there, so we’ve got to bring that up and put it in.
“We’ve got plenty of work to do. They’re a very good team. Well-coached. We’ll be excited to see them again if we get the chance.”
Bow faces off with Bishop Brady on the road on Thursday, while Hopkinton hosts Inter-Lakes-Moultonborough on Friday.