Coffman, Liberty battle traditional powers
Tuesday, March 28, 2023
By Jarrod Ulrey
julrey@cbussports.com
Since girls lacrosse became sanctioned by the OHSAA in 2017, Upper Arlington and New Albany have been the safest bets among any programs in Ohio to be playing for the Division I state championship.
Figuring out how to muscle their way past those teams has been the annual struggle for programs like Dublin Coffman and Olentangy Liberty, but both the Shamrocks and Patriots believe they’ll be in the conversation to battle for the title this spring.
“UA was a special team last year, but at Coffman now if you lose in the regional final, we’re going to count that as a disappointment because we have high expectations every year,” Shamrocks coach Adam Beasley said.
The Shamrocks were the No. 3 seed for the Division I, Region 3 tournament in 2021 but upset three-time defending state champion UA 11-9 to reach state for the first time. They went on to beat New Albany 13-12 in the championship game.
A year ago, Coffman lost to the Golden Bears 17-7 in the Region 3 final and New Albany edged Liberty 14-11 for the Region 1 championship. The Eagles went on to defeat UA 13-12 in overtime to win their first state title.
New Albany opened this season with a 14-8 loss to Mason on March 18 but was without senior attacker Abby Cole, who finished with 72 goals a year ago. Cole has been out with a bone bruise.
Junior midfielders Ellie McClelland and Maddy Paz, who have committed to Notre Dame and Ohio State, respectively, lead the defending state champions.
“(Liberty is) definitely a rivalry that’s been growing over the years,” Eagles coach Elaina Enich said. “Tim Bosco is an amazing coach and gets the players to buy into his system and honestly it’s pretty exciting just seeing the growth of a program like that and knowing in our area that we have that competition right up the road. We’ve matched up against UA five times in state finals. We’re all familiar foes.”
Bosco took over as Liberty’s coach in 2019 and had a pair of talented freshmen, Makena Harrington and Lexi Bird, set to be key players in 2020 before that season was postponed in mid-March and later canceled because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Since that time, Harrington, a Florida commit, and Bird, who will play for Stetson, have been a major part in what Bosco believes has been a change in “culture.”
“The girls are really confident,” Bosco said. “They’re very coachable and probably most importantly, they just kind of believe that they’re good. They believe they don’t have to back down from anyone, and that’s very different from when I started here four years ago. We would walk into a UA scrimmage or game and it was like, ‘We’re done.’ And we usually were. … Obviously we’ve seen incremental success over the years and it just kind of builds.”
Harrington, who finished with a program-record 82 goals and was named the state’s Midfielder of the Year, is joined at that position by junior Isabelle Pohmer, a Lafayette commit, and her sister, sophomore Madeline Pohmer. Another sophomore who has stepped up is Corinna Hilmas, who is a move-in from UA.
The Patriots, who lost five defenders to graduation, beat the Bears 10-5 in a scrimmage and play them again April 6.
“We definitely have the talent this year, and our culture is really good,” Bird said. “We hopefully have a good year ahead of us. We do a lot of team bonding stuff. Everyone is such good friends and there isn’t separation among the grades. (Losing to New Albany last season) definitely has made everyone want it so bad this year.”
Coffman’s state title run in 2021 was bolstered by the growth of senior midfielders Bailey Morris and Kate Tyack, who were sophomores that season and have since signed with South Florida and Ohio State, respectively.
Morris finished with 81 goals and 15 assists and Tyack had 72 goals and 17 assists last spring as Coffman went 15-6.
Senior defender Micaiah Parks has committed to Limestone, senior attacker Morgan Halli will play for Kent State, senior goalie Kiki Jose will play for Anderson and senior defender Olivia Lantz also is expected to play collegiately.
Beasley believes the growth of the Dublin Lacrosse Club at the youth level has helped build the program’s depth.
“We have a great group of junior and senior girls that are three-year starters,” Tyack said. “We have all played together since we were little. We also have some really talented sophomores and freshmen that will help us a lot this season, too.
“Winning a state championship in 2021 was incredible. We were a young team with some great senior leadership that year. Last season, we did our best to go back to states, but we didn’t make it out of our region. I think that experience, winning it all in 2021 and then losing in the regional finals in 2022, has motivated our team to do a lot more work in the weight room and in practice so that we can do our best to compete for another OHSAA state championship this year.”