Granby beats N. Branford, wins first title since 2011

WETHERSFIELD – Two years ago, the Granby High field hockey team lost in the Class S final to North Branford. The Bears lost last year in the final to Immaculate.

The program had won six championships between 2000 and 2011, but had come up empty since.

“I think just that group that lost last year, they didn’t want that again,” Granby coach Sandy Wickman Mason said.

Top-seeded Granby withstood an early barrage of shots and penalty corners, regrouped, scored off a penalty corner with 1:42 left in the half and made it stand up and defeated No. 2 seed North Branford 1-0 for the program’s 14th state title Saturday morning at Wethersfield High.

“It was like same old thing, every time,” Granby senior Alana King said. “This time we were finally able to be done with it. We’re like, ‘We need to win this year. We need to do whatever it takes.’

“We watched a bunch of motivational videos and we quote it when we have timeouts and halftime – it just keeps everybody intense and we were all fired up to win.”

Granby finished the season undefeated (18-0-1) with its only tie (0-0) coming in the first game of the season against Westbrook.

It was the first loss of the season for North Branford (20-1-1). The Thunderbirds outshot Granby, 12-7 and had nine penalty corners to Granby’s six.

“I thought we came out pretty strong in the beginning then Granby took a timeout [in the first half ] and really played much more aggressively,” North Branford coach Babby Nuhn said. “And that took us out of our rhythm.”

Junior Avery Bryanton scored Granby’s goal off an assist from Julia Olchowski just before the half and the Bears’ defense hung on in the second half. Senior goalkeeper Nina Gagne made 10 saves, the most she’s made all season. Granby also played much of the game without one of its top players, senior McKenzie Pedersen, who left the field with 13:51 left in the half with a leg injury. And at the end of the game, the Bears got a yellow card and were down one player for five minutes.

After the game, the players piled on the bus to head to Hartford to cheer on the girls soccer team, playing in the Class M final.

“I said, ‘ We’re only going if we’re wearing gold around our necks,” Mason said. “They were motivated for that.”