BLOOMSBURG, Pa. — Kate Beier had an emergency when she and the rest of the Adelphi women’s lacrosse team arrived at Bloomsburg University in Pennsylvania earlier this week for the NCAA Division II semifinals.
The white headband Beier wore every game was missing. The senior All-American attacker had left it back in Garden City, N.Y., roughly a four-hour drive east of Bloomsburg.
“Of all trips to forget my headband,” Beier said. “I actually called one of the girls who works in the athletic department. She came to our game on Friday, and she was able to drive it up here for me. I needed it.”
With the headband back where it belonged, and the Florida Southern defense staying like glue on Adelphi leading scorer Jacqueline Jahelka in Sunday’s championship game, Beier stepped up with a game-high four goals to lead the Panthers to a 6-4 win and their eighth NCAA title.
Adelphi (21-1) avenged last year’s loss to Florida Southern in the national championship game, which at the time marked its first loss on the big stage, as the Panthers were previously a perfect 7-for-7 in title game appearances from 2004 to 2015.
“It was definitely tough,” Beier said. “Our [current] seniors, we came in [as freshmen] and won [the title]. Then we won again as sophomores. Junior year, we didn’t know what it felt like to lose. When that happened, it hurt. Unfortunately, it was the last game of our season, so there was nothing we could do.”
There was a little bit of excitement on the side of Adelphi players when they watched Florida Southern (21-3) win its semifinal to set up Sunday’s title game rematch. The Mocs defeated Lindenwood 13-12 and the Panthers topped Le Moyne 11-7 to set up Sunday’s rematch.
“Yes and no,” Beier said. “We watched the game, and we weren’t hoping for them to win, but then they did win. It was nice, because we looked at it like it was going to be a little bit of revenge to get it back.”
But as much as Beier’s heroics Sunday, Adelphi’s win came on the back of its defense — the same one that held opposing teams to 3.45 goals a game, the best mark in all of Division II. The Panthers stymied a Florida Southern team with the nation’s second-best offense at 16.86 goals per game. Adelphi held the Mocs to a season-low four goals. Florida Southern’s previous season low of five goals came in a 12-5 loss to Adelphi back in the second game of the season, exactly three months ago on Feb. 21.
Senior All-American Ryley, sophomore All-American Shea Weber, second-year starter Jen Graham and third-year starter Kaitlyn Stackpole formed the impenetrable Adelphi zone defense that often collapsed on Florida Southern leading scorer Kendall Kerge, who was held scoreless in Sunday’s final.
Adelphi junior goalie Hailey Peterson, who is believed to be the first Florida native to play for Adelphi roster and attended a high school that’s located just an hour south of Florida Southern, tallied four saves.
“I was never on a defense like this, I’ll tell you that much,” said Adelphi third-year coach Pat McCabe, a National Lacrosse Hall of Fame defenseman and four-time All-American in his playing days at Syracuse in the late 1980s. “While I was a defender, I have nothing to do with [coaching] defense.”
That task is instead left to associate head coach Frankie Caridi, a third-year collegiate coach who was an All-American goalie at both Adelphi and Division I Stony Brook.
“I marvel at how they play. I really do,” McCabe said. “It’s interesting to watch. When we play good teams, they play offense against us for a long time, because they want to do that and hold the ball.”
Florida Southern did that effectively in the first half, jumping out to a 3-1 lead before Beier scored with 1:47 remaining to cut the Panthers’ deficit to 3-2 heading to halftime.
“There are times we struggle in big games,” McCabe said. “We get caught in the moment a little bit, and we just needed a little bit of a wakeup call. It just happens sometimes. We didn’t flow very well in the first half. We just didn’t capitalize on it, because we didn’t make a key play at the right time or threw the ball at the wrong spot and mishandled it.”
A year ago, Florida Southern was down at halftime and rallied for five straight goals in the second half to capture its first and only NCAA title. This time, Adelphi was down at halftime and responded with four straight goals to take a 6-3 advantage with 5:34 left in regulation.
The Panthers’ defense also kept Florida Southern without a shot goal from the 6:12 mark of the first half to the 7:29 mark of the second half —a stretch of 28 minutes and 43 seconds. Florida Southern put just six shots on goal to Adelphi’s 15. The teams were an even 6-6 on draw controls.
“It’s two-fold there,” McCabe said when talking about the Adelphi defense. “Part of it is by design, and part of it is they just can’t get inside.”
Sunday marked the second-lowest scoring championship game in the 17-year history of the NCAA Division II women’s lacrosse tournament. Adelphi defeated Lock Haven 5-4 in overtime in 2015. The Panthers’ win Sunday also snapped Florida Southern’s school-record 18-game winning streak, although the Moccasins still finished with the single-season program record in wins.
Beier notched Adelphi’s final goal on a free-position, open-net shot after officials whistled Florida Southern goalie Taylor Gillis (nine saves) for a foul. Before the shot, Beier glanced over to Jahelka (one goal), who missed a free-position opportunity on an open net a year last season against LIU Post.
“She missed an open net once,” Beier said. “She was like, ‘Kate you better shoot it well.’”
Beier first looked to her coach before taking the shot with the clock under six minutes. She wasn’t sure if McCabe would have preferred for the Panthers to hold possession and chew more clock.
“But I looked at him,” Beier said. “And he said, ‘Go. Take it.’”
Those were the same instructions McCabe gave to Beier shortly after Florida Southern cut it to 6-4 with 3:26 remaining.
“I said to Kate in the closing minute, ‘I know you got it in you. Go get it and finish this,’” McCabe said. “She went and got the ball and ran around.”
Beier is one of six Adelphi seniors. Five of them are starters.
“Our seniors were remarkable not only today but throughout their careers and certainly this year,” McCabe said. “But when we needed plays again and again, it was our seniors. … They have carried this program on their shoulders, and they leave us in a very good place. We’re going to miss them very much.”
That’s not to say the cupboard is bare. Freshman attacker Allison Johnson’s 57 assists and 99 points this season were among the best marks among all Division II players. The Northeast-10 Rookie of the Year tallied two goals and two assists in Sunday’s victory, not bad for someone who had to fill the shoes of four-year starter and previous Adelphi assists leader Rachel O’Brien.
“It was such a transition for me as a player,” Johnson said of her steps from high school to the college game. “Because I had to learn how to add assists to my game. If you look at my high school stats, assists were not a part of it. But if you look at my stats now, that’s a big part of it.”
As much as McCabe admitted that he will miss this senior class, the future is bright for an Adelphi program that will return players like Johnson and Peterson, among others.
“We’ve got some really good ones lined up behind them that are ready to accept the mantle and move forward,” McCabe said.
Beier, meanwhile, still has to repay that Adelphi assistant who delivered the headband.
“I’ll probably buy her lunch or something,” she said.