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Boston Globe
21 hours ago
- Sport
- 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
Boston Globe
29-05-2025
- Sport
- Boston Globe
Tufts men's lacrosse started the season under a cloud of controversy. It finished with perfection.
What followed was the most dominant season in the program's history. Tufts finished 23-0, capping the year 'I think our guys really didn't have a choice but to move on and be focused,' said coach Casey D'Annolfo, a Tufts alumnus. 'I think if anything at all, it kind of made us more more resilient, and sort of more exclusive to the outside. I think it made us a tighter-knit group and a more resilient group.' Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up The Jumbos' success started in midfield with junior Jack Regnery, the Division 3 Player of the Year, who led the NESCAC with 103 points. Tufts overwhelmed opponents with its scoring, firing in 418 goals — more than 100 more than any other NESCAC team. Advertisement Tufts junior Jack Regnery was the Division 3 Player of the Year. Daniel Murphy/Melrose High School Tufts had a couple of scares — mainly in overtime wins over No. 3 Christopher Newport University in March, and No. 10 Wesleyan and No. 6 Bowdoin (both double OT) in April — but nobody could get one over on the Jumbos. Advertisement 'When we encountered things during the season that were challenging, or in years past would have been considered as adversity … it sort of paled in comparison to what we went through in the fall,' D'Annolfo said. 'So I think it calloused us in a way, and I think it made us more resilient in the springtime." By the time the postseason arrived, any thought that Tufts would be seriously challenged vanished. The Jumbos romped through the NESCAC tournament, winning each game by at least nine goals, including a 12-goal demolition of Wesleyan for the championship. Then came the NCAA Tournament. Rhodes College was first, victim of a 15-7 defeat. Next was No. 17 St. Lawrence, whose 14-8 loss was the closest any team would get to dethroning the champion. No. 7 Gettysburg College went down, 17-8, in the quarterfinals. Fifth-ranked Bowdoin perhaps looked likeliest to give Tufts a real challenge in the semifinals, having come closest to an upset this season. Instead, the Polar Bears were subjected to a 26-11 demolition. All that was left to do was finish the job in Sunday's title game at Gillette Stadium, and the Jumbos did it convincingly. Tufts scored the first 10 goals and led, 14-3, at halftime, never being challenged by No. 11 Dickinson College in the final stretch of the Jumbos' road to perfection. Tufts set records for goals and margin of victory in a Division 3 championship game. Casey D'Annolfo, a 2006 Tufts graduate, has guided his alma mater to two national titles. Daniel Murphy/Melrose High School The final calculus on the Tufts postseason: eight games, eight wins, a combined margin of victory of 90 goals, and a dominant fifth national championship for the program. 'When we were playing those games, after the first couple minutes, we're like, 'OK, we're dialed, we're ready to go,' ' D'Annolfo said. 'So, you know, was I surprised? No, I wasn't totally surprised, but I guess I was just happy that they were ready to answer the call.' Advertisement For a group of 16 seniors (including five Massachusetts natives), four seasons in Medford finished with a record of 82-7, three NESCAC titles, two national championships, and one perfect season. 'The senior class is incredible,' D'Annolfo said. 'They're incredibly resilient. We were wire to wire, No. 1 in the country, so you're getting everybody's best shot, the expectations from everybody are super high. And every time their best was needed, they provided it ... Certainly, statistically, the most successful group to ever come through the program and they just answered every call at every turn.' Amin Touri can be reached at
Boston Globe
22-05-2025
- Sport
- Boston Globe
Tufts, Colby, Middlebury to represent New England in Division 3 women's lacrosse Final Four
Three-time reigningchampion Middlebury will face Colby Friday at 4 p.m. at Roanoke College, in Virginia, while the Jumbos will take on Gettysburg (Pa.) at 7 p.m. Both semifinal games on Friday will be available to stream on The winners will advance to the championship game, set for Sunday at noon. Advertisement Bedford's Allie Zorn leads Tufts (20-1) in points (82) and is second on the team in goals (59). The junior was a 2022 Globe All-Scholastic and girls' lacrosse player of the year during her senior year at Bedford High. Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up Tufts beat its first two NCAA Tournament opponents by a combined 20 points before eking out an 8-7 win over Salisbury (Md.) to advance to the national semifinals. On the other side of the bracket, Colby (17-3) will face powerhouse Middlebury (19-1), which has lost just two games in the last four years: against Tufts in the 2022 NESCAC tournament final, and against Wesleyan in this season's NESCAC semifinals. The Panthers have won three straight NCAA titles and are led by former Globe All-Scholastic Hope Shue, a graduate of Dover-Sherborn High School. Now a senior, Shue was Advertisement The attacker leads the Panthers in goals (76) and points (107) and is second in assists (31). She's the program's all-time leading goal scorer (296) and this season broke Middlebury's all-time points record with 379 and counting (the previous record was 347, which Amy DiAdamo set from 1994-97). Gillette Stadium will Emma Healy can be reached at
Associated Press
17-03-2025
- Sport
- Associated Press
Division II's Daemen, the last unbeaten NCAA men's team this season, takes its 1st loss
AMHERST, N.Y. (AP) — There are no unbeaten teams left in NCAA men's college basketball — at any level. Daemen University, located in the Buffalo, New York, suburb of Amherst, lost in the Division II men's tournament on Sunday night. The Wildcats were defeated by St. Thomas Aquinas in the second round of the East Regional, 79-74. Daemen (28-1) was 3-0 against St. Thomas Aquinas this season before the season-ending loss on Sunday. Tennessee was the last remaining Division I men's unbeaten this season at 14-0 before falling to Florida on Jan. 7. Wesleyan was the last remaining Division III men's unbeaten at 26-0 before it lost to Trinity in the NESCAC championship game on March 2. The only remaining unbeaten NCAA basketball team left this season is NYU's women's team -- which takes a 29-0 record — and a 60-game winning streak — into Thursday's Division III national semifinals against Wisconsin-Stout in Salem, Virginia. NYU's women are seeking a second consecutive national championship.
