Kati Sousa is one of four Hollis/Brookline players with 20 or more points this season.
The Hollis/Brookline High School girls lacrosse team knew it was going to be a good season.
But this good? The Cavaliers had no idea.
Heading into the quarterfinals of the Division III playoffs on Wednesday, the Cavs had lost just one game all season – to Division I Pinkerton in the final game of the regular season.
Against the rest of its division, H/B (12-0 in D-III) put up the following numbers:
- A total of 177 goals scored, or an average of almost 15 per game.
- Just 32 goals allowed, or 2.7 goals per game.
- An average of goal differential of over 12.
The Cavs closest game in Division III this season was a 14-9 win over Oyster River. But that win came just a day after an emotional 18-2 victory over Kearsarge in a rematch of last year’s division championship game, also won by H/B.
“I thought it was going to be like last year, where we had some tough games and then some easy ones,” senior goalie and co-captain Lorin Field said.
“It’s a surprise,” said senior Alicea Papineau, who is also a captain. “You never know going into a season if teams have improved or gotten worse. I didn’t expect to go undefeated this year. Everyone has their days. Sometimes we’re really sloppy and sometimes we’re all together.”
But even when the Cavs have bad days, they still come out on top. The main reason for that can be attributed to two things – depth and chemistry.
Kati Sousa – another senior captain – leads the team with 41 points (25 goals, 16 assists), while Papineau is second with 36 points (18, 18), tied with Annabelle Eliopoulos. The next two highest scorers both have 20 points each and after that, the Cavs can turn to just about any one on their offense to put the ball in the back of the net.
“Everyone on our team can score and no one minds passing the ball,” Papineau said. “It’s so much harder. If you just have one person to watch the whole game, that’s easier than having the whole team to guard.”
But just as important is the relationship amongst the players, especially the seniors. Many of them – including the four captains, Papineau, Fields, Sousa and Emily Dutile – have played together as they moved up through the feeder program in Hollis, which has led to an uncanny familiarity on the field.
“Kati (Sousa) and I joke about this all the time,” Dutile said. “I just look up and know Kati is going to be coming down the field. You can expect them to play their role.”
“We all know each other, and we all know where the other is on the field,” Papineau added. “It’s easier for us to make our passes connect. That’s really what has helped us. If we didn’t get along, if we didn’t connect, we wouldn’t passing to each other and we wouldn’t be transitioning as well up the field and scoring.”
It’s made for games some lopsided scores, even in the first half. Eight times this season, the Cavs have scored 10 or more goals in the first 25 minutes of a game, with a high of 15 against Hopkinton. Almost all of those leads have been double digits as well.
“It’s definitely different from the norm, but we all have so much fun playing the sport that the score doesn’t matter,” Sousa said. “I wouldn’t call it boring. We have fun because it’s a good opportunity to run our plays and it’s good for conditioning, running around all the time.”
Field has a tougher time, being in goal while her teammates are dominating the game, but she’s found ways to keep her level of play on par with everyone else.
“Sometimes (it’s tough), but my defense makes it fun,” she said. “Sometimes after we score, we have a dance that we do. I like to watch (the offense) and see how they set up the plays.”
The ultimate goal is to win a championship, and the Cavs will spend the playoffs reminding themselves of that.
“Any team can come out as a champion,” Dutile said. “I just don’t want the team to expect that we deserve the championship more than anyone else.”