Champs at last: Inside CCHS girls’ first state lacrosse crown
“This group believed in each other; it’s the closest team I’ve ever played on, and the chemistry played a great role.”
In the half-century since Acton-Carlisle launched a girls lacrosse program, there’s been a lot of success.
There have been plenty of Dual County League and sectional championships and MIAA Final Four appearances. The program has produced All-Americans and Division I college players. Some even earned All-American status in college and played on NCAA championship teams.
Just one thing was missing.
Not anymore.
On Thursday, June 12, CC won its first state championship, defeating Dual County League rival Westford Academy, 8-6, at Babson College’s MacDowell Field for the MIAA Division I title.
The girls finished the regular season 18-2 and were the No. 1 seed heading into tournament play.
“I’m so happy for them,” said Coach Erin Cash, who just completed her seventh season in charge of the program. “This is great for the program, the school, and the town.”
‘We play for each other’
For the last decade, the Patriots have been among the state’s best teams. They reached the sectional finals six times, winning the Division I East crown in 2015 before bowing to Westwood in the state semifinals.
In 2022, the MIAA switched to a statewide tournament, eliminating the sectional tournaments, which is how CC got to face its DCL rivals from Westford in the state finals, as opposed to earlier in the tournament as they would have previously.
Last season, CC made it to the Final Four but lost to eventual state champion Central Catholic.
“I was thinking about how we totally could have won that semifinal game,” said co-captain Alissa Bono. “I continuously replayed that last summer going into this season. A lot of players this year were returners.”
The Patriots defeated Central Catholic in this year’s state quarterfinals, then beat Chelmsford in the semifinals, setting up the meeting with Westford.
Many of the players on this year’s team grew up watching some of the great CC players of the past, such as multiple-time All-Americans Peyton and Fallon Vaughn, Mass. Elite player Eliza and Revolution Lacrosse player Gabrielle Mirak, who served as an inspiration for what the team accomplished this season.
“My sisters and Fallon Vaughn [are] incredible players,” said sophomore Scarlett Mirak. “I watched them when I was younger, and I never thought I’d be here.”
Said senior co-captain Karleigh Mutch, “We play for [the alumni], and we play for each other.”
Mirak and Mutch each notched two goals in the title game.
Winning chemistry
To Cash, winning the state title this year wasn’t so much a matter of having something previous teams didn’t have but rather building on the qualities of those teams.
“Every season, all the kids I’ve been coaching have been great kids,” she said. “A lot of credit goes to their parents, who taught them how to work hard.”
“This group believed in each other,” Mutch said. “It’s the closest team I’ve ever played on, and the chemistry played a great role.”
“It’s the amount of threats that we have,” Bono said. “We have so many threats on attack, so many threats on defense. We won the draw, and that was so important. This team has so much energy. Throughout my entire three years on varsity, our energy just rose. That was our key focus, and it fostered such an environment that we could win an MIAA state title.”
That faith also bolstered freshman goalie Mamie Kosicki. She was not the Patriots’ starter at the beginning of the season, but she stepped up and filled the role despite not having played the position since she was in the sixth grade. In the final minutes, when CC was two players down, she remained confident.
“It felt like a long time,” she said, “but I knew my team would hold on and win for us.”
Monday, June 23: This story has been updated.
