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Boston Globe

A lacrosse champion five times over, from Dover-Sherborn to Middlebury, Hope Shue reflects on a legacy of winning

Related : A two-time NESCAC Player of the Year and three-time IWLCA First Team All-American, she earned NCAA Tournament Most Outstanding Player honors for the third time this year. Middlebury coach Kate Livesay called Shue a once-in-a-lifetime player. 'She brings an incredible work ethic and intensity to everything she does,' she said. 'She chases greatness with a competitive spirit and deep love for her teammates.' Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up Added fellow Middlebury senior Maggie Coughlin, a Notre Dame (Hingham) graduate from Hanover, 'As a teammate, Hope is able to balance competitive fire with positivity and fun.' Advertisement She joined NFL quarterback, and North Dakota State alum Carson Wentz, as the only NCAA student-athletes to win at least four national championships and three Elite 90 awards — given to the athlete with the top GPA at each of the NCAA's final championship sites. We chatted with Shue to learn about her lacrosse journey. How did you first discover lacrosse, and what drew you to the sport? I think I started lacrosse around fourth grade, maybe a little bit earlier in the backyard. A lot of my family played lacrosse. My older sister played, my mom played. It was just something I felt like I was going to try. I think lacrosse is particularly difficult for young girls to get into, especially back then, because it's so hard to catch and throw with the sticks back then and the eye-hand coordination of a 9-year-old. I was initially more Advertisement Hope Shue initially hoped to play Division 1 women's lacrosse, but it all worked out with four national championships at Middlebury. Courtesy Sideline Media How did your experience at Dover-Sherborn prepare you for college, and what are some of your favorite memories? It was a really epic run at D-S. My coach, Erin Massimi, was my club coach all through middle school. I was really excited when she got the job when I was going into ninth grade. We really were kind of a Cinderella story over the course of the four years. We got pretty beat up by a lot of teams the first year. We only had a 13-person roster, so we had basically one sub on the sidelines . . . By our senior year, we were one of the strongest teams in the entire state, regardless of division, and had a really amazing run to a state championship. Some of my fondest memories in sports are that spring season, playing with my best friends for the town that you were born in and grew up in. In 2021, Hope Shue (left) won a Division 2 girls' lacrosse championship with fellow senior captains Amelia Novitch (center) and Lily Thompson. Trevor Hass What was your recruiting experience like, and what led you to Middlebury? I was really gunning for Division 1. I played on one of the top club teams in the country on Mass Elite. Most of the other girls on my team were committing to Division 1 schools, and I felt like that was the path I wanted to take. But I was a really small player (5 feet, 4 inches) and, quite frankly, not one of the best people on my club team. Because of that, I definitely wasn't getting the Division 1 looks that I wanted . . . I started talking to Middlebury around November of my junior year and went up for a clinic in January. I started to realize that all of the things I thought about, Middlebury could offer. By July 1, when I committed, I was really excited about the opportunity to play at the best Division 3 program in the country. At the same time, I didn't know much about it, so I feel really lucky that it worked out the way it did. But it definitely wasn't where I intended to be when I was an eighth or ninth-grader starting the recruiting process. Related : Advertisement What's some adversity you've overcome that people may not know about? It definitely has been difficult over the years not placing too much expectation on yourself. I personally like being in an underdog position. I think most people would. It's been difficult to frame each season and each game so that I don't feel the expectations. Then the academic side, my GPA became pretty public by sophomore year. So just trying to tune out the awards, the expectations, and really focus on not striving for perfection. Hope Shue won a national championship in all four of her seasons at Middlebury, after winning a Division 2 title at Dover-Sherborn. Courtesy Sideline Media Winning four straight national championships is insane. Can you speak to the consistency of the group and how you were able to do that? Advertisement I think it speaks volumes to the culture that goes top-down from my coaches. They set such a high bar for us, because they really believe that we're capable of that. Then bottom-up, with all the players on our team really committing to coming to practice every day ready to compete at that level. We don't speak too much about national championships, conference championships, or even our record at all . . . I think the secret ingredient for the past four years is that we're really a different team by the end of the season. It's been really fun to see that transformation four years in a row. Related : You have a job lined up at a small biotech financial advisory firm. How do you think lacrosse will translate to the real world? It's a small financial advisory firm called Related : You've embraced the underdog role since you were young. What would 10-year-old you say if she could see you now? I would definitely be incredibly proud of myself. I really put a lot of work in along the way, from being 10 years old, and just hitting a ball against the bounce-back every day, over and over again, the repetition every day throughout the years. I definitely never imagined that this would be where I was after four years at Middlebury. I'm just incredibly grateful for everything that Middlebury's given me. I definitely still feel like the underdog entering the real world here. I'm back to the bottom of the totem pole. Advertisement Hope Shue won a national championship in all four of her seasons at Middlebury, after winning a Division 2 title at Dover-Sherborn. Courtesy Sideline Media Trevor Hass can be reached at