None of the Jamesville-DeWitt girls lacrosse players were born in 1993 when the program last lay claim to a Section III championship.
Since then, everything in the game had changed, from rules to expansion of statewide classifications from two to four, but the Red Rams, despite season after season of winning records and post-season appearances, had found itself unable to get that elusive sectional banner.
All of that changed last Tuesday night in the sectional Class C final at SUNY-Cortland, when the top-seeded Red Rams used a scoring blitz early in the second half to turn back the challenge of no. 2 seed Carthage and, by a 12-8 margin, finally go to the top.
For these J-D players, the immediate hunger to get a sectional title came from dropping Class B finals in 2015 and 2016. And it almost didn’t get to the final this time, either, needing overtime to survive a challenge from Whitesboro in the May 25 semifinal at Fayetteville-Manlius.
Meanwhile, Carthage, who had beaten Cortland in the other semifinal game, didn’t carry the burden of a championship drought, and for most of the first half it stayed right with the Rams, controlling the game’s tempo, too.
For the first 14 minutes, all that J-D could produce was goals from Katie Lutz and Riley Burns. But Burns had scored while the Rams were a player down, and Jill Risvai would do the same after Lindsay MacLachlan’s tally put her team back in front, 3-2.
Arysa Lux was the fifth different J-D player to find the net late in the half, in between goals by Peyton Romig and Braelie Kempney that allowed the Comets to stay within one, 5-4, but one second before halftime a yellow card was issued to Carthage, giving the Rams a chance to do something a player up early in the second half.
J-D would do plenty.
Bess Murad converted on a free-position goal, launching a stretch where, in just 92 seconds, the Rams would nearly double its total and streak out to a 9-4 lead. It didn’t stop when Carthage returned to full strength, either, as two more goals made it 11-4.
That 6-0 spurt produced a championship, for Carthage didn’t surrender. Midway through the half, the Comets’ own 3-0 spurt cut the margin to four, 11-7, but Lutz hit a crucial goal with 8:11 left that allowed the Rams to dictate the pace and possess the ball down the stretch.
Burns finished with three goals, part of a typically balanced J-D attack. Lutz, Risavi and MacLachlan each scored twice, with Bess Murad and Lizzie O’Brien joining Lux with single goals. Emma Silverstein made four saves as Romig led Carthage with three goals and one assist.
