WILBRAHAM – At this point, the Northampton girls’ lacrosse team is slightly notorious for playing its best when down a few goals.
They continued that trend on Wednesday, when the No. 21 Blue Devils took on No. 12 Minnechaug in the MIAA Division 2 Round of 32. Trailing 13-7 with 6 minutes, 35 seconds left in the game, Northampton nearly orchestrated the comeback of the season against the Falcons, scoring five unanswered goals over a span of 3:44 to pull within a single goal.
But despite the heroic attempt, it wasn’t to be for the Blue Devils; Minnechaug took control back over the final two minutes, scoring three times to pull away and punch its ticket to the Round of 16 with a 16-12 victory.
Minnechaug’s Ella Henry was electric for the home team, scoring seven goals to lead her team into a matchup with No. 5 Billerica.
“Mostly I’m just proud of my girls. I think that’s really my biggest thought, is they played hard to the end,” Northampton head coach Kyla Power said on her team’s late comeback. “We had practiced that exact move right where a (midfielder) gets it, they dodge hard, one of our attackers goes for that draw and dump – and that was successful three times? That’s a win. It’s always exciting when you see something that we’ve tried and we’ve worked on actually be successful.”
Minnechaug came out hard in the second half, putting the Blue Devils on their heels in a way that they weren’t in the opening half. After the Falcons scored five unanswered goals to take a dominant 12-6 lead, Northampton called a timeout to settle things down. That seemed to do the trick for the visitors; captain Chloe Denhart scored a goal just 18 seconds after play resumed to give the Blue Devils life, and their roll continued from that point on.
“I think after that timeout, we really were just like, ‘This is our last game no matter what so might as well come out playing hard and trying our best,’” Denhart said.
Though Minnechaug scored once after Denhart, the Blue Devils got two goals from Sofia Ciaglo and a tally apiece from Izzy Epstein, Eloise Ruberti and Ellie Mahoney to close the gap and make it a 13-12 game.
Northampton was no stranger to attempting late-game comebacks. Just a few days earlier, Denhart scored with 14 seconds left on the clock to force overtime against East Longmeadow in the Western Mass. Class B championship game.
“It was definitely exciting, especially after that East Longmeadow Western Mass. finals game. We know we could come back no matter what,” Denhart said. “So when we get ahead like that, and we just get a rally, it feels good and everyone’s excited.”
Denhart finished the game with a goal and four assists. Northampton’s scoring was led by sophomore Ciaglo, who netted five goals and an assist. Epstein also secured a hatty and Ruberti added two goals in the loss. Keeper Riley Shea made four stops in goal.
Most of the game’s scoring happened in the latter half on Wednesday. The teams went into halftime tied 4-4, with the Blue Devils taking control of most of the opening frame. Northampton got its first goal 26 seconds into the game from Ciaglo, and the Devils kept their foot on the gas from that point forward.
“I thought we did a really good job, especially in the first quarter, really controlling the pace of the game,” Power said. “Normally we come out and we try to score within 10 seconds – and we did do that as well. But what we also did was we took time on offense to wait for something beautiful to happen and then used it.”
The Blue Devils scored twice in the opening three minutes and kept the Falcons off the board until 16:08, when Henry got a fastbreak goal to make it 2-1. Northampton scored again to make it 3-1 a couple minutes later, and a flurry of goals from both teams came during a four-minute span toward the end of the opening half. The floodgates opened up for both teams after they returned from halftime, as the squads combined for 20 goals after intermission.
Though the loss means her team’s season is over, Power said she was proud of her players for what they accomplished this year.
“I’m so grateful for my girls. They’re an amazing team,” Power said. “I’m proud of them, they’re great kids. I hope there’s good memories for them.”