Wolverines top Longmeadow
WAYLAND - After the Westwood baseball team captured the MIAA Division 3 state title over Frontier in Lowell, the boys headed over to the girls' lacrosse Division 1 state final to see if the Wolverines could duplicate the feat.
It happened to be their day.
In its fourth meeting in the state final in six years, Westwood (24-0-1) powered past Longmeadow, 10-7, to win yet another state championship over the Lancers. The Wolverines clinched titles in 2003 and 2005; Longmeadow (21-3) salvaged a win in 2004.
"It's huge. I mean once we won it freshman year I always kind of wanted one for myself, to be like I don't have my sister's help so today was a big one," said senior captain Alex Frank. "I know for our seniors, [winning the state title] was our goal for the season and to come out and play like we did today and come out and win is great. It's a great ending to our season."
Westwood dominated the first half, led by the Globe All-Scholastic trio of sophomore Kelly Rich (six goals, five in the half) and senior captains Frank (two goals) and Erin Massimi (two goals, one assist), who accounted for all the scoring.
After Longmeadow scored the first goal of the game 2:16 in, Massimi tied it and got the ball rolling for the Wolverines, who added seven straight goals before the Lancers finally scored again with 54 seconds remaining in the half.
Longmeadow's bid for a seventh state title looked to be over, but the Lancers rebounded in the second half.
Westwood cooled off after Massimi scored her second goal of the game 15 seconds into the second half. Longmeadow senior Katie Phillips (four goals) scored back-to-back goals to get Lomgeadow within five and Westwood called a timeout with 20:37 left.
After a scoreless 15 minutes, Jessica Lesage found Rich on the left side of the net and she scored her six goal of the game to make it 10-4 with 5:35 to go.
"[Kelly] was outstanding," said coach Leslie Frank. "She's just seasoned. She sees when it's time. She's patient, she holds her cuts, and then [takes the shot]."
But Longmeadow still wouldn't go away. Emily Stankiewicz responded 32 seconds later and the Lancers added two more, but Westwood goalie Abbie Brown (seven saves) made an enormous save and gave it to Massimi, who took it to the other end and held onto the ball until the horn sounded.
"The work ethic of those kids, I felt so much pressure from Longmeadow in the second half. I don't even know how we pulled it off," said Leslie Frank.
"Right now I'm just really excited. All of our hard work paid off and I really wanted to do this for the seniors because they have led us to so many things," said Rich. "We just really wanted to finish it off for them. We had such a great season and it was just a great way to end it."
