Four Rivers girls win third straight state ultimate championship

By KYLE GRABOWSKI

Staff Writer

Published: 05-28-2023 6:52 PM

NORTHAMPTON — Four Rivers opened the floodgates to win its third consecutive girls ultimate state championship.

After allowing the game’s opening goal to Northampton, the Otters ripped off 10 in a row and cemented a 15-2 win on Sunday at the Oxbow Marina.

“I’m really proud of us. I’m proud of how we’ve grown as a team this year,” Otters captain Eleanor Herbert said.

Her fellow captain Eve Macek propelled Four Rivers’ offense. She scored four times and threw six goals.

Four Rivers led 8-1 at the half, and Macek ripped a long throw to Olivia Vassar out of halftime to crank the PSI even higher.

“After half, I was like, ‘Guys, we need to like turn this intensity up.’ We’ve got to keep it up,” Macek said. “I don’t really know what happened with the defense on that but I just saw someone going and was like, ‘OK.’”

“Sent it,” Herbert added.

The Otters stretched their lead to 10-1 until Northampton’s Dahlia Breslin stemmed the tide.

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Four Rivers ended the game on a 5-0 run. Macek threw three of the last four points

Linnea Macek added three goals and an assist. Sheakyn Garvyn and Eleanor Hebert (assist) scored twice each, while Tirz Skelton and Sophia Slade contributed two assists each.

The Otters avenged a loss against the Blue Devils in pool play. They took Northampton down for the second time in a tournament final this spring after beating the Blue Devils for the Amherst Invitational championship.

“We came into this weekend with a lot of nerves because we kind of won last year, we had like this reputation to uphold sort of thing. (Saturday), we were all pretty stressed out nervous, and I think that was affecting our gameplay,” Hebert said. “Then (Sunday), we just came out and wanted to have fun, and it worked well.”

The Otters will now turn their attention to the national ultimate invitational in Utah in mid-June.

“I’ve never been out west and there’s a lot of teams out there that have super huge potential. Going last year, there was just a really fun vibe of spirit and everyone was there have fun, especially because the national invite hasn’t been around for very long,” Hebert said. “I think it’s really a great opportunity to have all these teams come together that we wouldn’t really see.”

They’ll carry the momentum of a second state title to nationals.

“It’s another push to get us to want to improve more and take it to the next level,” Macek said.

The Four Rivers boys team took third place after defeating Needham 11-9 in the third place game. The Otters lost 12-7 against Lexington in the semifinals. They also picked up wins over Lincoln-Sudbury (13-6), Masconomet (13-2), Sharon (13-2) and Abington (13-1). In Sunday’s quarterfinal, they beat Xaverian, 13-7. Zane Appel and Isaiah Goleman, both team captains, played a strong tourney for the Otters.

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