Bedford girls lacrosse cruises past Windham to win D2 championship

MANCHESTER – The Bedford High School girls lacrosse team was riding high Tuesday night at halftime of the Division II championship game against Windham.

But if the Bulldogs needed any reminder that there was a lot of time still left to play, all they had to do was look across the field at their opponent. When the teams met in the regular season, No. 3 Bedford built up a lead only to watch the top-seeded Jaguars rally to within one goal before time ran out.

This time, there would be no comeback. Bedford countered every Windham rally in the second and the Bulldogs went on to a 19-12 win at Southern New Hampshire University for their first championship in program history.

“There are literally no words for this,” Bedford senior Drew Shapiro said. “We’ve been trying for so long and it just feels amazing to finally get it. We talked about how this is the game of lacrosse, and however many goals we were up by, it wasn’t a lot, although it seemed like a lot. They are an athletic team and you can score within 20 seconds in this game.”

Bedford (17-3) led by five at halftime, largely thanks to Shapiro, who scored seven of her game-high 10 goals in the first 25 minutes. In fact, five of those goals came in the last 13:03 of the first half, when the Bulldogs used an 8-1 run to turn a 6-4 deficit into a 12-7 lead.

Kennedy Boyle also had four goals and an assist for Bedford while Kelsey Linehan had an assist and four goals and Makayla Sterling added two goals and an assist.

The Bulldogs ability to stay focused and rally, even on the biggest state, was something coach Christine Hodgdon has become used to seeing.

“They just didn’t get worked up about it,” she said. “They didn’t get frazzled. Having seven seniors, the maturity and leadership was there, and that was important.”

And at halftime, it was Hodgdon who reminded the players what had happened the last time the two teams played.

“Windham is a tough team and when we played them in the regular season, we a lead and they fought back,” Bedford goalie Ashley Maddox said. “We knew it was a team that wasn’t going to roll over.”

And the Jaguars (15-3) didn’t, twice cutting Bedford’s lead to three goals in the second half. But each time, the Bulldogs answered, including a game-ending 4-0 run.

“Windham is so good and they are good at going on runs, and they proved that,” Hodgdon said. “They went on a little run. We were lucky to make adjustments early and get the ball back and put a few in to secure that lead.”

The Jaguars got four goals and an assist from Ali Connors while Melissa Cino had two goals and five assists and Courtney Sweeney (assist), Hope Curtis and Alexandra Lewis had two goals apiece.