The first round of the state playoffs for women’s lacrosse took the War Eagles down I-485 as they made their way to Ballantyne Ridge High School in Charlotte, North Carolina. Suddenly, there was a loud pop, clear as day over the sounds of TikTok and music blasting through the girls’ AirPods. By the time everyone processed what happened, the bus was pulling over. As the players frantically looked around, they realized that the bus’s tires had popped, leaving them stranded on the side of the road. Panic moved through the team as the reality set in that their historic season might not end with a game, but with a breakdown.
But this year’s women’s lacrosse team was no stranger to adversity. From even before the season began, they were faced with uncertainty. After graduating over half the previous year’s team, the War Eagles faced a harsh reality: they might not have a season at all.
At the beginning of the school year, it became clear to the returning lacrosse players that having to recruit and find new players would be a necessity. Members of the team asked everyone they knew to come out and at least try the sport, promising playing time and a great team environment. Junior Mallory Peck was one of the new players who joined the team.
“I was looking for something fun to get involved in after school and saw lacrosse practice leaving school one day,” Peck shares. “I didn’t know anything about it, but I thought that it looked fun and I was willing to try something new.”
Prepping for the season looked a little different this year; instead of going over plays, the coaches were teaching the basics of the game. So when the first game arrived against Southwest Guilford, no one quite knew what to expect. After a fight to the end, the team came out with a win in overtime, an outcome that nobody had expected. While the team lost the next two games, they managed to pull out a win against their conference rivals, the East Forsyth Eagles. It was after this game that both the players and coaches realized the potential they had for this season. Suddenly, the goal had shifted. This season wouldn’t be about simply winning games but breaking records.
The team continued to fight to break all team records, but some personal ones were also crushed. Before this season, the most goals scored by a single player was 58, but Kayden Richardson, a sophomore, crushed this record.
“Coming into the season, I didn’t expect to break any records,” Richardson said. “I didn’t even know how well I was going to perform. My dad had told me the record mid-season, and as I was getting more and more goals, I decided I was going to beat it.”
Richardson ended up scoring her 59th goal in a game against Glenn High School. Ultimately, she ended the season by crushing the record with 71 goals for the season. But Richardson wasn’t the only player who set new records. Across all games played this season, the War Eagles managed another rare accomplishment: every player on the team scored at least one goal. Maintaining these kinds of performances throughout the year allowed the War Eagles to end their season with their first conference winning record in program history: 10-10.
While playing in the conference tournament is a given for a team regardless of their regular-season performance, this year’s tournament brought with it more nerves than normal. Not only had the girls set new standards for themselves on the season, but they saw that they would be facing East Forsyth for the third time. In the previous two seasons, the team had managed a record of 2-1 against East, never being able to win all three times they have played. So when the team pulled out a 10-8 win in their final match-up, it was another battle the team had overcome and soared above what was expected. Head coach Haley Hines is so proud of what the team accomplished.
“It was an exciting win over East Forsyth to make it to the second round of playoffs,” Hines shared. “It was the first time we had beaten them all three times in a single season. Going up against West Forsyth during the second round was a challenge, but the team gave it everything they had until the end, and that’s all we could ask for.”
The team’s strong performance throughout the year also netted them their first state playoff berth, which also became the scene for their last major obstacle as the team sat on the side of I-485, not knowing what they would do to make it to this match-up. Ashlyn Seivers, a junior on the team, had no idea what to expect from the situation.
“At first, I thought that a lacrosse stick fell out because a couple of people started grabbing their sticks, and I had thought mine had flown out the window,” Seivers said. “When I saw that we had a flat tire, I was scared we were gonna miss our game and have to reschedule it for another day.”
Fortunately for Seivers and the rest of the team, parents for a number of the players were able to catch up to the bus and transport the girls to Ballantyne Ridge. While the team ultimately fell short in their first crack at the state playoffs, simply making it to the game served as a testament to this team’s resilience throughout a season that began with such uncertainty. But through that uncertainty came a drive to push to new heights. Where next season will take them is anybody’s guess at this point, but even if it is filled with more surprises, these War Eagles have shown their resilience and ability to push through any kind of breakdown.
