DANVERS — Let’s break down some key numbers.
Twelve, as in the number of goals the Ipswich girls lacrosse team scored Monday to defeat their rivals from Manchester Essex, 12-6, in the Division 4 state semifinals at Deering Stadium.
Five, which were the number of tallies that senior midfielder and captain Allie Wile had while again leading the Tigers offensively.
Four, the number of goals that sophomore Natalie Elder powered into the Hornets’ net.
Three, signifying the number of times that Ipswich has reached the state title game over the last four seasons.
One — and this is most important of them all — state crown that the Tigers finally hope to bring home Thursday night.
“I’m honestly just so grateful we have this chance. This team has put in so much hard work; we don’t practice two hours a day for nothing. We even practiced an hour after we graduated (on Sunday),” said Wile, who was recently named an All-American. She also had one assist in the victory. “That’s what state championship teams do.”
Second seeded Ipswich (now 17-3) will square off against the No. 1 team in the Division 4 bracket, Sandwich (19-3), for the Division 4 championship trophy Thursday at Babson College in Wellesley (time TBA).
“Am I surprised? No. I felt we could get back here. That was the goal,” said Ipswich head coach Allison Tivnan, who took her program to the state finals in both 2023 and 2024, as well as the state semifinals last spring.
“The seniors are back for the third time, which is amazing, and the leadership group, they really want it,” she added. “We were not pleased last year coming up short (in the semifinals to eventual state champion Norwell), so that was a goal of ours from the beginning to get back to where we want to be — and we plan to hopefully take it this time on Thursday.”
Only trailing 1-0 before scoring twice to take the lead for good, Ipswich took the game over in the middle two quarters by winning draws and making good use of its off-ball movement offensively. A 2-1 lead after 12 minutes became 5-3 at halftime, then increased to 10-5 after three as the Tigers kept up relentless pressure.
“It just wasn’t in the cards for us today,” rookie head coach GG Huet said after her Hornets wrapped up their season at 14-7. “We played pretty sloppy in the midfield and were beating ourselves in a lot of ways, making silly mental mistakes, which ended up killing us.
“Possession of the ball was killing us,” she continued. “(Ipswich) is very good at keeping the ball on offense and running the right things. We usually score when we get the ball on offense too, but you can’t win if you don’t have the ball.”
The Tigers had defeated sixth seeded Manchester Essex twice during the regular season, 15-7 and 14-5, prior to this Final Four clash.
“It’s really rewarding to see all our hard work pay off. It could’ve gone another way today, but it didn’t because of all that hard work,” said another IHS captain, senior attack Keira McPartlin, who had a goal and an assist in the victory. “People say it’s hard to hard to beat a team three times, but we didn’t let that get in our way. We powered through it and got another win.”
Manchester Essex star senior Abby Kent scored just 12 seconds into the third quarter to cut her team’s deficit to 5-4, but Elder, Ella Schofield (from McCarthy) and Wile scored back-to-back-to-back goals in less than two minutes to give their team a four-goal advantage.
“That’s Allie on the draw. And the turning point was when we (caused) two turners and scored three goals in a row; that’s what it is,” said Tivnan, who got the opportunity to coach at her alma mater (Danvers High Class of 2011) on Monday. “And that check Ella McCarthy (goal, 2 assists) had on the ride … it’s little things like that that won it for us.”
Junior defender Taryn O’Brien (who assisted on McPartlin’s goal late in the 3rd quarter to make it 10-5) was “outstanding”, according to her head coach. So was Sydney Leonard, with the sophomore goalkeeper finishing with five saves.
“We haven’t really been tested a lot in the playoffs, but she really came up big for us in this one,” said Tivnan.