LACROSSE

Bridgewater-Raritan girls lacrosse wins first Tournament of Champions title

Lauren Knego
Courier News and Home News Tribune

UNION - Just call the Bridgewater-Raritan High School girls lacrosse squad the Dream Team.  

Bridgewater-Raritan (22-1) held off a late rally and scored the winning goal with 1 minute 37 seconds remaining in the game to win its first Tournament of Champions title, 7-6, over Oak Knoll (21-5) on Saturday at Kean University.

"I'm speechless, it's something we've all been working towards since we were little, a lot of us have watched our brothers do it twice, it's crazy it happened," said Bridgewater-Raritan's Hannah Hollingsworth, who finished with four assists. "It's nuts that it happened, it's something we've been talking about for so long." 

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It was the Panthers' first appearance in a Tournament of Champions final, and they were facing Oak Knoll, a team they had lost to 13-7 back on May 1, which was Bridgewater-Raritan's only loss of the season. 

"Coming into this game we were coming off a loss the last time we played them, so we knew we had to get it going from the start," Bridgewater-Raritan's Kirsten Murphy said. "We had a lot of hard practices, changed our defense. We definitely worked off the fact that we didn't play that well the last time we played them, so we fixed what we did wrong, practiced hard and it showed."

On Saturday, Bridgewater-Raritan let a 6-2 lead slip away, and the Royals scored four goals in the second half to tie the game 6-6 with 6:40 remaining. 

With 1:37 remaining, Murphy scored her fourth goal of the game on an assist from Hollingsworth to put the Panthers ahead 7-6.

"Honestly I wasn't even thinking about it, it was such a team effort, I couldn't have done it without anyone else around me," Murphy said. "It feels amazing, we've been working for this since we were like five years old, and to finally get here is insane."

With time winding down, Oak Knoll took a shot that Arielle Weissman saved, but Bridgewater-Raritan turned it over with 56 seconds to go. 

Oak Knoll's Ali Baiocco took a shot with 37 seconds to play, but Weissman made the save to preserve the win and earn Bridgewater-Raritan the Tournament of Champions crown. 

Having played Oak Knoll earlier in the season, Bridgewater-Raritan knew it had to fight from the starting whistle, and the Panthers scored twice in the first two minutes for a quick 2-0 lead. 

Bridgewater-Raritan led 4-2 at the half and stretched it to 6-2 on Murphy's third goal of the game with 22:08 remaining, but Oak Knoll slowly started to chip away at the Panthers' defense, scoring three straight goals in less than three minutes to get within 6-5 with 14:22 left. 

"It definitely made us nervous, we kept our composure and I think that's why we were able to bring it back," Murphy said.

Ally Mastroianni and Julia Lytle each added one goal and one assist for Bridgewater-Raritan, and Addison Reilly also scored. Weissman finished with seven saves. 

For the Panthers, this season was a long time in the making. Many of the players have been together since elementary school, and winning a state title and getting to the TOC has always been the goal. Bridgewater-Raritan won its first North 2 Group IV and first Group IV title since 2009, and then defeated Bernards in the TOC semifinals to earn a berth in the final. 

"We had a lot of returning varsity players, but everyone is just so dedicated," Hollingsworth said. "The second we lost last year we said, 'Alright, we have one last shot, this is it,' and we all put our hearts into it and it's something we've had in the back of our minds since we lost last year."

Staff Writer Lauren Knego: lknego@gannettnj.com, on Twitter: @laurenknego