That one’s for coach
Rockets snare 1st title since ’02 for O’Brien
At the beginning of this season, Caroline Walsh and her fellow Needham girls lacrosse teammates made an important decision for their longtime coach, Beth O’Brien. They decided to dedicate their season to O’Brien’s husband, Joe, who died of cancer in the fall.
The Rockets followed through in a big way. They held a game for a cancer charity. They wore his initials on their shirts and on stickers. But Walsh knew of one other way they could lift O’Brien’s spirits.
“All season we were hoping, that because Beth hasn’t won the state title, we knew that that would be just so sweet for her this year,” said the senior captain. “Just winning the South sectionals, we knew that if we won that, we had to win the whole thing this year.”
And yesterday Needham did just that. With a strong defensive effort and a no-quit attitude, the Rockets (23-3) earned their first state championship since 2002 with a 8-5 win over Longmeadow (22-2) in the Division 1 final at Boston University’s Nickerson Field.
The strong and potent Lancers struck first, off an Allison Tetreault goal. Sarah Conley answered with back-to-back goals a few minutes later to give Needham the lead. Kendall Milligan and Walsh soon built the Rockets’ lead to 4-1.
Illana Kofman notched the Lancers’ second goal with seven minutes left in the half, but Needham’s defensive pressure was too strong for Longmeadow to handle. With 55 seconds left before intermission, Callie Hem buried a shot to give the Rockets a 5-2 lead at the break.
Needham won the opening draw of the second half and Hem quickly buried a Conley pass for a goal. Maeve Barker added one more before scores by Kay Conway and Tetreault brought Longmeadow within three with 14 minutes left.
The two teams played back-andforth until Kofman’s second goal of the game shrunk Needham’s lead to just two with 9:56 left. The Rockets turned their focus to maintaining possession instead of taking every shot they saw.
“It’s that mental game that we talked about, just being mentally tough,” said O’Brien. “We’re here for a reason. If we keep our head on our shoulders, we’re going to get out of this.”
With just over four minutes remaining, the Lancers got the ball back and whipped two shots on Needham goalie Liz Vallatini, who came up with two giant saves. The Rockets regained possession, and Barker’s goal with 1:28 left secured the victory.
It was a title win that the girls wanted so badly for their coach, but it turned out their coach wanted it more for the girls who had been by her side through a difficult time.
“For me it’s obviously such a great thing after such a tough year, but more importantly I wanted it for these kids,” said O’Brien. “I couldn’t be happier because they truly earned it.”