Title was worth the wait for Derryfield girls lacrosse

The Derryfield School girls lacrosse team needed a moment to regroup.

After leading for all of the Division III championship game, the Cougars watched as Hopkinton chipped away at the lead and pulled within a goal in the final five minutes.

And then Mother Nature gave the teams quite a timeout.

A lightning delay put a stop to the action with 4:21 remaining and the teams found a place to wait it out.

“We went back in and a couple of the girls said they were overwhelmed,” Derryfield coach Mellissa Catenza said. “The pressure was getting into their heads. It was a good time for us to refocus.”

For some of the seniors, it was an eerily similar situation to what happened two years ago, when the Cougars saw a lead evaporate late in the final against Hopkinton. It was something they stressed to the younger players could not happen again.

“We kept reminding the underclassmen of the last playoff run that we had,” senior Lucy Licata said. “It was definitely a constant conversation because it was so prominent in our minds.”

“We’ve lost it once, we’re going to win it this time,” senior Shawna Lesmerises added. “We want it more than ever, especially because of how it was two years ago.”

Licata and Lesmerises were both sophomores on that team that finished as a runner-up, and with a lot of the lineup back, they expected to have another shot at it in 2020. Instead, Derryfield returned only a handful of players with varsity experience this season, and all year, the Cougars tried to prepare a big group of freshmen and sophomores for the biggest stage.

“We had our mission from the very beginning of the season to get back to the championship,” Catenza said. “All the seniors wanted that taste, they wanted to come back. Every time there was some kind of loss of focus, the seniors would get the kids together and say ‘this is what we’ve been working for.’ Those girls look up to the seniors. Each and every one gave a hundred percent, so they knew what we were trying to focus on.”

Derryfield took an 8-6 lead into halftime and went by as many as four goals in the second half before Hopkinton was able to cut the lead down to one, 11-10, before the lightning delay.

“Right when it happened, we were all just annoyed and we wanted to finish the game off,” Licata said. “I think when we first came into the delay, we thought it would just be a half hour, so we talked about what we wanted to work on in the last four minutes.”

But a half hour turned into longer as lightning continued to strike.

“I’m losing all of my heat and I’m losing my mojo,” Lesmerises said. “As it kept going on, I was just praying we wouldn’t get that last delay. One more lighting strike and we had to play the next day.”

Knowing that the Cougars would be there for at least 30 minutes, Catenza had the players gather like they usually would before or after a game.

“Every game we sit down and set personal goals for ourselves and team goals,” the coach said. “We went around and asked ‘did we accomplish the goals?’ When we go back in, what’s your new goal? They all set goals for themselves. We had a plan, for situational things, what needed to happen.”

And when Derryfield still had time to kill after that, the Cougars finally found a way to relax.

“We put music on and started signing and dancing, and the pressure disappeared and they relaxed,” Catenza said. “They were having fun together. They let that go and they were relaxed when they came in.”

When play resumed, Hopkinton scored to tie the game at 11 with 3:58 remaining, but Licata was able to win the draw and Derryfield tried to run as much time as it could off the clock.

The Hawks kept a defender tight on Licata, but Casey Benson was able to find Abbey Carr for the game-winning goal, as the sophomore scored with 1:31 remaining. Licata won the ensuing draw and the Cougars held on for a 12-11 win.

“We had run a play and it was designed to get me open, but my faceguard was too tight,” Licata said. “Abbey used it as a way to get herself open and Casey saw it from behind and fed her. It went in. We were all super excited at that point. Going to the next draw, we knew that if we won the draw, we’d win the game. I got the draw and we ran it out.”

After putting emphasis on other players stepping up in key moments, the Cougars were able to do that at the most critical time.

“When Abby got the ball, I saw the lane, and I was like ‘she better take it,'” Lesmerises said. “It shows the progression from the beginning to the end. Knowing in the beginning that we relied on Lucy to score eight goals a game. It was a lot of talk, a lot of conversation about what we needed to do to step up.”

Derryfield did that throughout the season, and it started with the senior class and ended with a championship.

“We had a tough schedule,” Catenza said. “We played a lot of D2 teams, which helped us to have composure. We had the toughest playoff bracket and that gave us the necessary tools in order to play in the championship game.

“They have worked tremendously hard for this championship. Their leadership has been phenomenal. Their mentorship to the underclassmen has been fantastic. I couldn’t have asked for a better senior class.”