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# Lost season helped strengthen bond for Bishop Guertin girls lacrosse seniors
- URL: https://www.nh-highschoolsports.com/lost-season-helped-strengthen-bond-for-bishop-guertin-girls-lacrosse-seniors/
- Published: 2022-06-18T14:00:30.000Z
- Updated: 2022-06-18T14:00:30.000Z
- Description: It was bad enough that the start of the COVID-19 pandemic led to the cancellation of the 2020 high school spring sports season. The timing of it made it a whole lot worse. "We had done indoor (all winter), we had done all this stuff and we were really pumped," Bishop Guertin High School girls lacros
- Author: Joe Marchilena
- Tags: Division I, Bishop Guertin, Cardinals, championship, NH High School Sports Insider, slider, #wp, #wp-post, #Import 2026-08-18 04:44

It was bad enough that the start of the COVID-19 pandemic led to the cancellation of the 2020 high school spring sports season.

The timing of it made it a whole lot worse.

"We had done indoor (all winter), we had done all this stuff and we were really pumped," Bishop Guertin High School girls lacrosse coach Leslie Why said. "They (the Cardinals) had won the year before. Some of them hadn’t even made varsity."

And for some coaches, like Why, they had to wait a whole year just to officially coach their players, after being hired in the offseason.

"We also had a coaching change in the middle of the pandemic," Bishop Guertin senior Rylee Bouvier said. "It was a big rattle for our whole community and our whole team, but Leslie took over with such great stride."

For Bouvier's classmates, who were getting ready to play their sophomore season that spring, losing out on that year had the potential to be damaging. At other schools, it has been, as participation has seen a drop for both boys and girls lacrosse in some parts of the state.

But for Bishop Guertin, the players and coaches found a way to stay connected when they weren't allowed to be together.

"I think how they got through it is that they found each other," Why said. "We did some pretty fun things. We did a couple of Zoom calls. We did Zoom trivia and they’d send me answers to questions and we’d guess who said it. We all wore dresses (on the calls), even I wore a dress. It was really fun."

The coaches also delivered candy to the players for Easter, and after putting together a "pseudo" varsity team, made warmup shirts for them.

"We did a lot of stuff like that," Why said. "These kids are so unbelievably hard-working, the amount they put into academics and community service."

The players also found ways to continue to work on their skills. Those who lived close enough would get together wherever there was outdoor space to shoot or run other drills, all while filming each other, to see where they needed to improve and to have something extra to show college coaches.

"All the adversity we faced through the pandemic and not being able to play with each other," Bouvier said, "everyone worked on their own and that really showed, because our talent level didn’t diminish at all."

When games resumed in 2021, those players - then juniors - were able to contribute to another Division I championship, but after losing a large senior class to graduation, they had to regroup and come together again.

"We lost 11 seniors last year and at the start of this season, we knew it was going to be a new team," Bouvier said. "But we were a new team in all the best ways possible. So much unselfish play this year, so many great new assets. Coming together as a team throughout the season, we were building up for (the championship) game."

It culminated on June 7 in a 13-7 win over Bedford in the D1 championship game, the fourth in a row for Bishop Guertin. It's also the program's fifth title since moving up in 2015 and the sixth overall since 2010.

"It feels really good being able to close off with something like this," Bishop Guertin senior goalie Makenna Reekie said. "Obviously, I would have been really grateful if we didn’t win because we made it so far and that means a lot to me because I never thought I’d be going to BG in my life.

"But then I did and we won this much, and it feels so good. I feel so happy to have had the opportunity to even come to the school. To be able to play on this team and be as successful as we have been for this many years, it feels so good."

Why feels some of that success comes from the friendships off the field, not just between players in the same grades, but throughout the whole team.

"Across grades, they're all friends," she said. "I think (New Hampshire) Tomahawks has something to do with that. We were coaching some group of them for six years. They played together for six years. Same team, summer hotels, their lives are intertwined."