Hopkinton's defense handled adversity in D3 boys lacrosse final against Laconia

The Hopkinton High School boys lacrosse team had a pretty simple game plan on the defensive end going into Saturday's 13-6 win over Laconia in the Division III championship game.

Gerry Donahue, the team's senior defender and the two-time division defensive player of the year, was going to try to lockdown Jakob Steele, meaning junior Kiernan Byrne would draw the assignment of guarding Riley Roy.

It didn't start out well for the No. 1 Hawks, as Steele scored the game's first goal just 1:23 in to give No. 2 Laconia an early 1-0 lead.

Despite that, the Hopkinton defense bounced back, forcing five turnovers in the first quarter and limiting the Sachems to one shot over the rest of the frame. The Hawks took a 5-1 lead into the second quarter, but they were dealt a blow to their defense, which had allowed an average of 3.8 goals in its previous 16 games.

Steele scored another goal to make it 5-2, but more importantly, Byrne left the game in the quarter with a wrist injury and didn't return.

"(The injury to) Kiernan looks like maybe a wrist break," Hopkinton coach Deacon Blue said after the game. "We had Kiernan matched up with Roy. When we went down, we had to make some on-the-fly adjustments."

It started with Donahue taking turns covering Steele and Roy.

"I had to cover one of them and the other would sometimes score," Donahue said. "I was trying to cover (Steele) as much as I could. He’s quicker, he’s tall and you need a long pole on him. I was trying to get to him, if I couldn’t I was on (Roy)."

At the same time, Blue was rotating in a handful of other long poles, including juniors Carter Hailey, Thayer Maughan and Ryan Huges, to help fill the void. But with Laconia able to keep possession for long stretches of the third quarter, the Hawks had to dig even deeper into the defensive unit at times.

"Some guys were getting tired," Blue said. "We got Carter Haley and Ryan Hughes stepping up to stop them. We even had a freshman go in, Steven Newton-Delgado, he stepped up big time as that fifth pole so we could get some LSMs cycled in at the midfield. We had a few guys come in at the end as we got tired and showed our depth."

The depth came in handy on a hot day and Donahue felt the Hawks owed a lot of that to the way they would compete with each other for playing time throughout the season.

"We have a really deep set of juniors (on defense)," Donahue said. "It’s that competition that we love on our team."

Instead of causing problems, Blue saw the level of competition among players in practices and during games as something that helped them bond.

"They’re tough guys, they work together, they don’t get mad at each other," the coach said. "They are super humble. It’s a great defensive core that we have."

And many of them are back next season, as of the seven seniors on the team, only Donahue and goalie Alex Rousseau will graduate from the defense. Those returners will have a chance to carry on winning tradition for Hopkinton, which has won 34 games in a row after capturing the last two Division III titles.

"A lot of us have been here before," Donahue said. "We’ve won a lot of championships the last four years between hockey, soccer and lacrosse. We liked to keep that mindset."