By Angela Watts
Assistant GM, Washington D.C. Metro Area
** Click the links to the left to access hundreds of photos and dozens of video highlights from Tuesday’s playoff game!
On a night highlighted by a few sweet distractions — a prom proposal on one side and a newborn adoring the sideline on the other — it was a history-making performance on-the-field that ultimately stole the show Tuesday at W.T. Woodson.
That’s where the Cavaliers held off a furious rally from Oakton to emerge with an 19-18 victory over the Cougars in the first round of the Northern Region tournament.
That means, for the first time in history, there will be a new Virginia High School League girls’ lacrosse champion.
Oakton has claimed all three of the VHSL girls’ lacrosse titles since the official state tournament began in 2006 with championship game victories over Fairfax (9-5), W.T. Woodson (12-10) and Chantilly (20-11) in consecutive seasons.
But the host Cavaliers made certain that crown will finally be passed this season.
“I’m a new coach so I don’t really know the history of every team, but I knew the history of Oakton,” first-year W.T. Woodson Coach Meaghan O’Leary said. “That’s part of what made this so important to the girls.”
In addition to their storied past, it just so happens that the Cougars have also ended the Cavaliers’ season each of the past two years.
“It was really a step that our team needed to take,” said W.T. Woodson senior captain Carrie Pritchard. “We really needed to be able to know that we could beat Oakton. It’s a huge thing for us because they’ve really been a hard match for us in the past.”
And despite coming into the game as the No. 4 seed out of the Concorde District, Oakton proved to be anything but a pushover this time around too.
W.T. Woodson, the Liberty District’s top-seed, jumped to a quick 8-3 lead just 10 minutes into the first half, largely controlling not only the ball but also the tempo of the game in the early going. But that’s when the Cougars began to play catch-up.
Led by seniors Danielle Filipponi and Blair Keffer, junior Lauren Mathieu and freshman Jackie Rupp, Oakton managed to pull within 14-12 at half time.
“The stakes are always raised in regionals when it’s that do-or-die kind of mentality,” Oakton Coach Jean Counts said. “And I think our girls finally realized that they had to pick up the pace if they had any shot of reaching their goals. For us, this year, they were baby goals. Little ones. And our goal was just to get to practice tomorrow.
“We weren’t looking to the end of the road of the state tournament or anything at all … we were just trying to get to be together again tomorrow.”
For both teams, that meant trying to slow the frantic scoring pace that defined the first 25 minutes of play.
“When I looked at the score at half time I thought, ‘This should be the ending score’ ” O’Leary said. “Especially with two good teams. But there were a lot of eight-meter shots. And usually, eight meters in high school go in.
“I guess both teams were just ready for that back-and-forth kind of competition.”
But it did slow in the second half — once it got started. There was a brief pause as the players took the field to line up for the second-half draw when W.T. Woodson junior Charles Basil ran onto the field — with a bouquet of flowers in hand — and asked Pritchard to go with him to prom.
“He’s my boyfriend, so it was pretty much a sure-thing I’d say yes,” Pritchard said, laughing. “Being asked at a game isn’t all that usual anymore … but being asked on the field is. So I thought it was cool.”
So, too, was the drama of the final half of play.
Oakton junior attacker Jackie Alexander knotted the score at 16 with 11 minutes, 35 seconds left to play, and that’s when the fun really began.
The Cavalier student-cheering section came to life — at one point even moving to stand just along the fence so their voices would more readily reach the field — as the intensity on-the-field increased.
W.T. Woodson (11-3 overall) re-gained the lead with 9:15 remaining on a goal by freshman attacker Elena Obregon, whose team-high five goals marked a new career-high. The Cavaliers increased that margin to 18-16 less than three minutes later on the fourth and final goal of the game for senior standout attacker Lauren King.
But Oakton (5-8) held strong, pulling within a single score once again at the 6:09 mark on Filipponi’s fourth goal of the game.
Then came what proved the game-winner, a beautiful assist-and-score from Cavalier senior midfielder Rebecca Geist to junior attacker Rachel Obregon with 3:18 showing on the clock.
The Cougars added one more goal courtesy of Rupp inside two minutes to play, but a late save by W.T. Woodson senior goalie Carolyn Fridley sealed the victory for the home team.
“She played awesome,” O’Leary said of Fridley. “She came up with so many key stops. The thing I always tell my team is that once the goalie makes the save you must get the ground ball if it deflects off of her, because she can’t save another one if it comes right back down her throat. And I counted five that came off my goalie and our defense did not pick up the ground ball.
“But Carolyn did a standout job tonight and, really, has this whole season. She was amazing.”
While the Cavaliers celebrated, tears fell on the Cougars’ sideline as seven Oakton seniors reflected on their high school careers.
“They’ve seen a lot of good things happen for this team,” said Counts, whose newest addition, Kellan — the youngest of her six children — slept in the carrier beside her. “So they wanted to just be a part of that again.”
But it wasn’t meant to be. So far, baby Kellan hasn’t proven very good luck.
“He was born two weeks ago today, and this was his third lacrosse game,” Counts said. “We’re 1-2 for his lifetime, which stinks. I wish we were winning for him. But we’ll have to work on that next year.”
Email: awatts@digitalsports.com
Oakton 12 6 — 18
W.T. Woodson 14 5 — 19
Goals — Oakton: Keffer 5, Filipponi 4, Mathieu 3, Rupp 2, Alexander, Brigham, Kuykendall, Palmucci; W.T. Woodson: E. Obregon 5, King 4, R. Obregon 4, Geist 2, Montgomery 2, Pritchard 2.
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