Keeping Watch: Ingrid Boyum's Journey from a Warship to Box Lacrosse

UTICA, N.Y. — Twenty-six minutes into the U.S. Women’s Box National Team’s game against the Haudenosaunee on Saturday night, the U.S. had managed only one goal and trailed 4-1.

The U.S. was dominating on the floor, but couldn’t get the ball past Haudenosaunee goalie Chelsea Doolittle. It magnified every defensive possession, as the U.S. could ill afford to dig a deeper hole.

Goalie Ingrid Boyum was the last line of defense. She regrouped after giving up an early goal she’d like to have back.

“I let in a soft goal, like a really soft goal,” Boyum said. “It was really slow, right in between my legs. I was like, ‘Oh man, that can’t happen again.’”

A couple breakaway goals from Ally Kennedy cut the Haudenosaunee lead to 4-3 at halftime, but the U.S. still struggled to score into the third quarter. Time and again, Boyum turned away shots from the Haudenosaunee before the offense finally got going and began to pull away late in the third quarter.

Boyum was lights out the rest of the way, finishing the night with 28 saves while allowing just four goals in an 11-4 victory that was considerably more nerve-wracking than the final score would indicate.

All goalies face pressure. Few are as equipped to handle it as Boyum.

Boyum graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy in 2018 and served five years as an officer in the Navy. She was stationed in various places, including a planned six-month deployment on the USS Harry S. Truman, a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, that turned into 10 months.

Now the head girls’ lacrosse coach and an admissions associate at Episcopal High School in Virginia, Boyum gave a speech to the students at the school last November as part of a Veterans Day observance, including a powerful story of a night from early 2022 aboard the warship:

One night I was on duty, on a dark, windowless watch floor full of screens. Around 3 a.m., one of my sailors turned around and asked me to look at her monitor, which was flashing red. That night, my team tracked the onset of the Russian invasion into Ukraine. Our strike group was operating in the Mediterranean Sea in close proximity to Russian warships and submarines.

A lot of things were riding on our ability to handle the pressure in that situation. On my ability to lead my team.

When I signed up to join the Navy at 17, I couldn’t have imagined it would be my voice coming across the communications network announcing the reality of the situation to other U.S. Navy ships in the region and briefing senior officers who I’d just woken up about how our world changed so suddenly. There was no way to comprehend the devastation that would follow and still continues today, or all the lives that would be changed.

But for me, once again, I had a job to do.

Yes, Boyum is trained to handle pressure, and it’s something she carries over to the lacrosse field.

“I try to stay right in the middle,” Boyum said. “Not to get too high or too low, but just remember this is what I have to do, this is my job and I’m trained to do it. No matter what the scoreboard is or how much time or what the pressure of the situation is, I knew that I would be prepared in that moment.”

Boyum currently shares goaltending duties on the inaugural U.S. box team with Taylor Moreno, a national champion at North Carolina and two-time Athletes Unlimited champion, and Madison Doucette, the first player to represent U.S. National Teams in box, field and sixes lacrosse in a world championship. It’s an impressive and highly-talented trio.

That Boyum is playing on a national team at all is equal parts expected and stunning.

On one hand, she was an accomplished goalie in high school, setting a school record at the Madeira School in Virginia with 732 career saves. She was recruited by multiple Division I schools but chose the Naval Academy because of the opportunity to be a part of something bigger than herself.

Boyum ended up being a three-year starter and helped lead the program to new heights. As a junior in 2017, Navy reached championship weekend, becoming the first women’s service academy in any team sport to play in the NCAA semifinals.

She earned All-Patriot League recognition as a senior when Navy repeated as league champions and advanced to the NCAA quarterfinals. She finished her career with 428 saves and averaged 16 wins per season in her three years as the starter.

On the other hand, Boyum could no longer prioritize lacrosse when she began active duty. She took her stick with her everywhere — except aboard Truman, where it was not allowed — and played pick-up games anywhere she could find an opportunity.

Otherwise, she essentially spent five years in lacrosse exile.

“If you had told me when I was on month nine and a half of deployment on the USS Harry S. Truman that I would get to come and represent Team USA in the box world championship, I would have told you were crazy,” Boyum said. “To go from representing our country on board a warship to now getting to suit up and go out and play and compete at the top level, it means the world to me. It just means more.”

Boyum earned the opportunity because she was persistent about finding ways to get active in the sport as her service time wound down.

“I made a deal with my commanding officer when I got extended on my deployment that he would let me leave a little bit early in the afternoons to go coach at American University,” said Boyum, who was a volunteer assistant coach for the Eagles. “I took a week of leave and I was on spring break with the AU team out in California having a blast when I saw the press release saying that the U.S. was going to start a women’s box team. I just had this gut feeling that there was something in me that was supposed to go for this opportunity. I emailed Coach Cap, she had no clue who I was, and I said, ‘I want to come play box. I’ll do whatever you need me to do, but I think I can do this.’”

Boyum showed up in Utica in May 2023 at the first of three player ID clinics that USA Lacrosse organized. It was not a resounding success.

“I went to the very first ID camp in Utica and I must have been the worst goalie there,” Boyum said. “I had found some guys in Baltimore who were so kind to me and lent me a set of gear. They showed me how to put it on and showed me kind of basics.”

But Boyum wasn’t discouraged. She reached out to U.S. head coach Ginny Capicchioni afterward and told her, “I’m here because I want to compete. I’m here because I want to win.

“I think that helped her maybe realize, ‘Who is this girl?’”

Capicchioni, a groundbreaking goalie who played for the U.S. men’s box team in the 2011 world championship, saw the potential Boyum had and felt something more.

“She had a character, a presence that great goalies have,” Capicchioni said.

To unlock the potential, Boyum would have to work hard as she essentially learned a new sport.

“The transition has really been a lot of training on your own and then having the small quick-hit team weekends,” Boyum said. “On my own, I get pummeled. It’s been incredibly humbling over and over again, but knowing this has been the goal — this has been what all those early mornings in the gym, those late nights up in Baltimore were for, to be able to perform in games like this. That’s what got me into the car all those times. I’m so glad we have this journey ahead of us.”

Clutch performances from the goalies will be essential if the U.S. is to achieve its goals. Boyum’s bounce back after a slow start against the Haudenosaunee is exactly what Capicchioni wanted to see.

“With our team’s ambitions, that’s what we need our goalies to do and that’s what she did,” Capicchioni said. “Unless you’ve been a goalie, you don’t know what it’s like to not touch something and be in a big game. The great goalies are the ones that have to dig out of holes. She had a hole, but she stepped up and stopped all the goals for the rest of the game.”

Boyum would have much preferred a strong start, but she never loses faith in herself.

“The comeback kid is not what we’re going for, but I owe so much of the resilience that I’m able to show in box to the life that I’ve lived to this point,” Boyum said. “I know that I’ve done tough things. Box is certainly up there on the list of tough things, but any situation where we get down or let in a couple, I know I’m capable of so much more. I know that I have to fight and can dig to get back to the performance the team needs from me.”

The next chapter in U.S. women’s box lacrosse history starts Thursday afternoon with a quarterfinal game. The team has been having the time of their lives and can’t wait to press forward.

“It’s electric,” Boyum said. “I have so much fun playing with these girls on this team. I wouldn’t want to do this with any other group. It’s really special.”