Portsmouth takes down Bishop Guertin to capture first D1 girls lacrosse title

EXETER – Portsmouth High School girls lacrosse coach JoJo Curro didn't want to miss a single second.

The Bishop Guertin High School girls lacrosse team was heading toward a chance to tie their Division I championship game with No. 1 Portsmouth on Tuesday at sun splashed Bill Ball Stadium.

Abby Lynn, Guertin's usual possession sparkplug, was making a move in the third quarter when the Clippers' Morgan Ruhnke stripped her of the ball without a foul, and began running down field.

And running.

And running – all the way untouched to score a goal that gave the Clippers an 8-6 lead with 5:13 left in the period, a lead and a spark they took into the final quarter of a 12-7 championship win.

“I didn't blink,” Portsmouth coach JoJo Curro said of watching Ruhnke's play. “I didn't want to miss a single second of that. Her speed, she was just so explosive. When she got out I said, 'She's going. And she needs to go.' And she did. She has such a strong shot and is such a strong player. Once she has the ball and she's going, she's impossible to stop.”

“The big thing we kept telling the kids was just chip away, one step at a time,” Guertin coach Callie Santos said, an otherwise successful BG season ended at 16-4. “Portsmouth was coming up with great plays, they were doing an awesome job. They came to compete (Tuesday), so they're a really talented group of kids, they came ready to go.

“So we were kind of on our heels in those scenarios. Instead of a goal, it turned up the other way.”

Guertin did strike first in the fourth quarter on a goal by Arianna Kouchalakos with 10:33 remaining, but that was the final goal of their 2024 season.

That's when Portsmouth senior Annie Parker (five goals, one assist) went to work. The Syracuse-bound midfielder set Emery Lawton up perfectly to make it 9-7 with 8:58 left, and then a minute later added a goal herself to make it a 10-7 game with 7:47 remaining. Portsmouth had Parker, BG didn't, and she was a difference maker as one would expect.

“One hundred percent,” Curro said. “When we had the ball, we wanted those slides to happen, and when they did, it made things open for other players.”

Thirty seconds later, Ginger Vinciguerra scored and the Clippers were on their way, up 11-7. Their last goal was scored just before the horn sounded, but not before an impressive 4:45 possession that ran out the clock.

“It's a good game plan, right,” Santos said. “You've got four minutes left, you hold the ball, you have a sizeable lead. It's what you do.”

Portsmouth (17-2) did a lot right in winning their sixth state title in seven seasons (five in D2). The first thing the Clippers did was jump out to a quick 3-0 lead on two Parker goals with a Ruhnke goal sandwiched in between. BG didn't get a goal until Kamryn Schmitt scored with just 46 seconds left in the opening quarter.

“It put us in a tough spot,” Santos said. “We were never able to get that lead, that go-ahead. Once they got that go-ahead on their side, their energy got up and they were able to capitalize on the opportunity.”

The Cards did tie the game on a Lola Dumont goal with 1:18 left in the half, but Portsmouth took a 5-4 lead into the locker room on another Parker tally with 35.9 ticks left in the half. The last tie was 5-5 early in the third, but the Clippers' Raegan Lawton put Portsmouth up for good, 6-5, with 9:26 left in the quarter.

Besides their timely goals, the Clippers smothered a lot of BG's top guns defensively. Lauren Redfern was held scoreless by Portsmouth's Maddie Houghton, and Schmitt was held to that one goal.

Kouchalakos, who had six in the semis, managed three Tuesday, while others were by Dumont, Mariella Tomasello and Skylar Naftali. The Cards never led, turned the ball over 12 times, and Portsmouth goalie Sage Bussiere had seven saves. BG goalie Maddy Eder-Linnell ended up with the same.

“I think our defense is what stepped up,” Curro said. “We had so many turnovers, Sage had so many saves, crucial saves. That's why we won this game, those big defensive moments.”

“They were playing in a zone, too, which makes it a lot harder,” Santos said. “They were very deliberate in a zone, we struggled to adapt to it, and keep the ball moving.”

Besides Parker's five, Ruhnke and Vinciguerra each had a pair, while Raegan and Emery Lawton, plus Lily Patterson, all had one each.

Curro said Portsmouth's drive and mental approach was what reversed the feeling from last year, a championship game loss to Bedford.

“It's that mental toughness,” she said. “If you don't have the mental toughness and drive to want it, a game can go a completely different way. We had that extra drive after what happened last year. We just wanted, it, we were hungry, and we got it.”

This story and photo were provided by the Nashua Telegraph.