After five months, more than 20,000 games, and more than a few storylines and controversies, the American scholastic season ended this afternoon with a close game between a pair of local rivals.
Kennebunk (Maine) and Saco Thornton Academy (Maine) are located about 13 miles apart along Route 1. For their Maine Principals Association Class A championship, the two teams traveled further up Route 1 to get to Memorial Stadium in Portland.
Though Thornton Academy was able to forget out ahead by three goals in the first term, it was a close and tense match throughout, with Thornton Academy winning out in the end by a 9-8 score.
It was Thornton Academy’s first championship. In contrast, Kennebunk had been in the grand final for the sixth time in the last seven years.
“They were fired up. And good for them to finish it,” Kennebunk head coach Annie Barker said of their rivals. “There’s only so much you can do and so many changes you can make.”
A lot of that came from the approach and mentality of the Thornton Academy team.
“We have been underdogs all season,” head coach Kelly Foley tells the Portland Press-Herald. “Even when we were third in the rankings, second in the rankings, people still kept overlooking us, and that’s exactly where we were comfortable being because we knew what we could do. And people underestimating us is always going to be their mistake, not ours.”
And with this result, the 100th year of girls’ scholastic lacrosse has ended.