Girls’ lacrosse: Bow off to Division III championship game after taking down Concord Christian, 17-4
Published: 06-04-2023 9:50 AM |
LACONIA – For the first six minutes of action between No. 1 Bow and No. 5 Concord Christian girls’ lacrosse in the Division III semifinals on Saturday night, it felt like a rerun of practically every Falcons game this season: scoring at will, without much pushback from the opponent. Staked to a 4-0 lead with 19:27 left in the first half, Bow looked poised to run away easily.
But CCA’s (12-5) defense stiffened over the next 10 minutes, and the offense found the back of the cage on a shot from Sarah Muir to make it 4-1.
Perhaps, it seemed, the Falcons (17-1) would face their first real tough test in D-III play this season. That possibility quickly evaporated. Bow scored four unanswered goals heading into halftime, and then opened up a 13-2 lead less than 10 minutes into the second half en route to a 17-4 win.
Alex Larrabee led the way for Bow with six goals; Muir scored three of CCA’s four.
Here are three notes from the matchup:
During that first stretch of the game when the Falcons scored just four goals in about 15 minutes, Concord Christian’s defense effectively neutralized their ability to just find open space in front of the net and score by clogging up the top of the eight-meter arc.
Eventually, Bow adjusted, finding open scorers parallel to the goal line instead of at the top.
“They were very strong at the top of the eight,” Bow head coach Chris Raabe said. “They were stopping us from going in up top, and so it just took us awhile to figure out the other avenues.”
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While the score validates the Falcons as the far superior team on Saturday, Raabe was sure to credit CCA, especially in its ability to compete with Bow’s athleticism.
“I thought they played us hard,” she said. “I thought it was a good game. Their goalie (Abby Owens) had a great game. She had some fantastic saves. And they're fast. We were fast too, so it was a good-paced game.”
A consistent critique of her team all season has been the need to slow things down. Especially facing more athletic competition, Raabe emphasized that patience is key.
“The game felt the whole time that it was much closer than it was,” she said. “At any point, they could've taken it to us. I think we just gotta be a little less frantic on the attack.”
Bow will now take on No. 2 St. Thomas Aquinas (15-1) in the D-III championship in Laconia on Tuesday night. The two teams did not meet during the regular season.
Although Saturday didn’t transpire as CCA might’ve hoped, it’s hard to find much criticism for a school reaching the semifinals in its first season as a varsity program.
“We were really proud to get this far,” head coach Janine Muir said. “We had a really good contest against Hopkinton on Thursday. They were a fantastic competitor and a good, clean game, so that was a really fun win. Then coming into this, we were just excited to get to the semis. To be here was awesome.”
Part of what makes CCA’s success this season noteworthy stems from their lack of actual lacrosse players on their roster. Most of them, Muir has said, are good athletes but didn’t have any lacrosse experience until she started up the program three years ago. Now, they’re focused on playing in summer leagues and continuing to build those skills to put themselves on a level similar to where Bow is now.
“We have a young team, so they have a lot to build on going into the future in the next couple years for school,” Muir said. “We have some players who are young, a lot of freshmen, that when they continue will have strong years coming up, so that'll be great.”
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