Girls lacrosse: Horace Greeley edges top-seed Yorktown 10-8 for Section 1 Class B title

SHRUB OAK —Sometimes words strike a chord.

Sometimes faith breeds confidence.

Sometimes just pushing and pushing and not being deterred can result in success.

And sometimes, especially when all of the above happens, the unlikely becomes possible.

As upsets go, No. 3 Horace Greeley’s 10-8 win over No. 1 Yorktown Thursday at Lakeland High for the Section 1 Class B girls lacrosse title won’t be considered one for the ages. Greeley just has too much talent for that.

But unlikely?

When a 10-6 team takes down a 12-4 defending champion that beat it during the regular season and defeated it a year earlier for the title?

Yes, unlikely.

But maybe not to those who pulled it off.

Ask Greeley sophomore Grace Richards how she stepped up on her free 8-meter try with little more than nine minutes left in a game tied at 8 and buried a bounce shot that caromed to the top of the net and she’ll point to Greeley third-year coach Maggie Sharp’s faith in her – in everyone, really.

“I was looking over at Maggie (before the ref blew the whistle to start the play) and she was saying, “Go for it. Go for it,’ “ Richards said, meaning shoot, don’t pass.

“She puts a lot of trust in us,” Richards said.

There were only two goals in the fourth quarter. Both belonged to the Quakers.

The insurance score came off the stick of Rowan Edson, a 5-foot-1 dynamo, who’s equal parts skilled, driven lacrosse player and Energizer Bunny.

It had been the junior Edson who, in full Bunny mode, had run right and left and right and left and, finally, getting no more than half a step on her blanketing defender, quickly ripped a ball off a left-handed shot high into the net to tie the score at 8 late in the third quarter.

Now, with four minutes and change to go in the fourth, she ran and ran, carrying the ball, with the look of maybe trying to help her team run out the game’s last minutes.

But then Edson blew up that thought, uncorking a great, hard bouncer that was going nowhere but into the back of the net.

“I just think this was our team as a whole,” Edson said of how Greeley, which had opened its season with a 9-5 loss to Yorktown, had won. “We never wanted it more. All the energy and work coming in as the underdog … We had a chip on our shoulder.”

And hearts full perhaps of possibility and the weight of the moment.

Edson noted before the game, senior teammate Dylan Tammers’ dad, Josh, spoke on the team bus.

And how his words resonated before she'd tied the score at 8.

He’d told them the players they should never take anything for granted. And that they were now living what would be some of the best moments of their lives.

His words, which Edson said, had triggered tears, also helped trigger the win.

A championship win.

A moment in time win.

Who scored

Edson was at the center of that.

She finished with a game-high five goals.

Bae Bounds, who’ll play for Brown next year and who’d been mobbed by her team while hoisting the championship plaque, had three goals.

Fellow senior Logan Skuro, who’ll play for Vassar, had a goal.

Besides her game-winning score, Richards had an assist.

And goalie senior Tatum Walsh had come up big with seven saves, maybe none bigger than great stop on an 8-meter free try by Yorktown’s very talented Ava Cunneen with Greeley up 9-8 in the fourth quarter.

Yorktown had led 2-0 early, trailed 6-2, then rebounded to cut the Greeley lead to 7-5 at the half before scoring the first three goals of the second half to take the lead.

Sofia Boucher led the Huskers, scoring three times.

Ava Ryan scored the second-half goal that had cut Greeley’s lead to 7-6 with a smart, skilled move, driving inside, pausing and then putting an underhand shot in.

Cunneen had the goal that tied things at 7 with 8:33 left. That was off a free 8-meterchance in which she took just a couple of steps and fired.

Allison Passarella, Lily Diaz (who also had an assist) and Brie Gacccino all had solo tallies.

Passarella’s quick-thinking score put Yorktown up 8-7 with 5:29 left in the third quarter. She was in the right place to find a loose ball off a rebound right in front of the cage and to, without a split-second delay, pick it up and immediately shoot it in.

Maggie Appelle was solid for Yorktown, stopping five shots to finish her three-year varsity career with 404 saves.

Yorktown’s Reileigh McEnroe, who’ll play next year for one of the country’s top Division I teams in the University of Maryland, thought both teams’ defenses played well but her team had run into a bit of bad luck.

But McEnroe also praised both Bounds and Edson, saying the two had “executed so well.”

And of Edson, the Colorado University commit whom McEnroe was charged with trying to defend against for the bulk of the game, Edson said, “She’s going to be really good (in college).”

Looking back at her time on Yorktown's varsity team, which began whjen she was a ninth-grader, McEnroe said the upper classmen then and her teammates and coaches since, “really built me up to where I am today and inspired me to play beyond (high school).”

Upnext

While McEnroe's and the rest of Yorktown's season is ow over, Greeley will play on.

Its first stop will be Tuesday at 4 p.m. back at Lakeland in a first-round state regional semifinal.

Nancy Haggerty covers cross-country, track & field, field hockey, skiing, ice hockey, basketball, girls lacrosse and other sporting events for The Journal News/lohud. Follow her on Twitter at @HaggertyNancy.

This article originally appeared on Rockland/Westchester Journal News: Girls lacrosse: Greeley upends top-seed Yorktown 10-8 for Class B crown