Coe-Brown girls lacrosse comes back to beat Laconia in first D3 playoff appearance

NORTHWOOD — After a breakout season, the Coe-Brown Academy girls lacrosse team finally qualified for the Division III tournament after 11 years as a program, and it appeared the Bears’ first visit was going to be a short one.

That’s because No. 9 Laconia reeled off three straight goals to begin the third quarter to break open a halftime tie in Tuesday afternoon’s first-round matchup, but Coe-Brown was determined to make program history.

Freshman Avery Keefe capped off a five-goal fourth quarter for the Bears with 59 seconds left in regulation, while junior goalie Alexis Muse made a pair of saves as time ticked away to lift eighth-seeded Coe-Brown to a memorable 10-9 victory on Alumni Field.

“It feels amazing,” Keefe said. “I think teamwork was a big part of it and it was just trusting our teammates. I think Laconia brought it to us, but we just had to fight back.”

Coe-Brown coach Tom Johnson and assistant Kristin Cimino switched roles this season, but both have been at the ground floor of building the program around the community ever since some of the current players were five years old.

The Bears (10-5) fell into a 2-5 hole this season before Tuesday’s eighth win in a row landed them a date at top-seeded St. Thomas (14-0) in Thursday’s quarterfinals

"I’m just so proud of the team for coming back,” Johnson said. “It feels incredible. If you look at our schedule with how hard our schedule was with Bows and St. Thomases of the world, we got those losses out early. Then we haven’t lost since. They put in the work to get here.”

Laconia (7-8) took a 7-4 lead midway through the third quarter when Ava Currier scored and Madeline Mousseau added a pair of goals. Coe-Brown’s Morgan Readel scored late in the third quarter to trim the deficit.

The Sachems maintained that cushion after Currier found Molly Cutadal for a goal, but goals by Fae Johnson and Keefe tied the game at 9-9 with 4:50 left in regulation.

“We made a switch to get more speed on attack and we also moved (Fae Johnson) over to defense to get some senior coaching over there,” Johnson said. “Once we started running our plays, things cleared up and we were able to take advantage.’

Keefe’s game-winning goal came off a free-position shot past Laconia goalie Felicity Faller.

“I just kind of had to drift and box out and shoot on the non-stick side,” Keefe said. “It was huge.”

Coe-Brown still had 59 seconds to kill off and Laconia didn’t go away easily. Mousseau was awarded a free possession opportunity, but Muse came out of the net to stuff her.

“Alexis was amazing,” Johnson said “It’s been night-and-day from last year. (Muse’s) attitude has been so much better and she’s just improved so much.”

Coe-Brown cleared Laconia’s last chance of a timeout with nine seconds remaining.

“It was a matter of getting the draws and they were very strong on the draw and getting that possession. Even when we did get the ball, we didn’t always take care of it,,” Laconia coach Bob Howe said. “But I’m proud of these girls, we only won one game last year, so to make the playoffs was our goal.”

Muse has been proud to see how much the program has grown and will appear to keep on growing. Coe-Brown has a foundation of 11 freshmen on this year’s team.

“From freshman year to now, it has grown tremendously,” Muse said. “Our freshman class this year has a lot of amazing players and Coach Tom has come into the program and helped us out a lot. He has a really high IQ and he really knows how to settle a team. He’s an amazing coach.”