MANCHESTER, Vt. - A year ago, Woodstock field hockey lost the state championship game in double overtime. On Sunday, Grace Perreault made sure the Wasps would not come up short again.
The senior captain scored four goals, and top-seeded Woodstock beat second-seeded Mt. Abraham 5-1 at Burr and Burton Academy to win the state championship. Junior Lindsey St. Cyr scored the other goal, and junior Betta Cirovic had three assists.
It is the Wasps’ first title since 2022.
“Honestly, losing wasn’t really an option for me today,” Perreault said. “I don’t know if I was expecting to get four goals, but I was expecting our team to do just as well as we did.” She added, “We all lived up to our expectations and it worked out how I wanted it to.”
Perreault knows the other side of this game, too. She scored Woodstock’s only goal in last fall’s final, a 2-1 loss to Montpelier in the second overtime. After that game, coach Leanne Tapley hoped the sting would push her young team. “I think getting here once and having that feeling will just make them hungry to come back,” she said that day.
Nine starters returned this fall, along with a large junior class that Tapley said has been playing together since elementary school. Perreault and fellow senior Ryann Hughes served as captains, and five players from Springfield joined the Wasps through a co-op.
Woodstock finishes 15-1-1 and went unbeaten in league play. Its only loss came on Sept. 18, a 4-3 game at Burr and Burton, the same field where the Wasps won the title on Sunday. The only other blemish was a 1-1 tie at Hartford on Sept. 11. Woodstock won its last nine games after that loss.
The top seed was at its best in the tournament. Woodstock beat Milton 4-0 in the quarterfinals and Stowe 6-0 in the semifinals, when Cirovic scored three goals, and outscored its three playoff opponents 15-1. Cirovic had already piled up hat tricks this fall, with three goals against Spaulding in the opener, four against Brattleboro in September and three at Windsor on Oct. 6.
Before the final, Tapley kept her message simple. “We need to work together, play as a team and be ready to win,” she said.
Mt. Abraham reached the final by beating Harwood 2-0 in the quarterfinals and knocking out defending champion Montpelier 2-1 in overtime in the semifinals, when freshman Lydia Paquette scored both goals, including the winner in sudden-victory overtime. The teams had not met during the regular season. The Eagles finish 12-4.
Perreault and Hughes, the two senior captains, go out as state champions.
Other relevant play on Sunday, November 1:
Bellows Falls 2 vs U-32 3 U-32, which knocked out Hartford in the semifinals, won its first field hockey title in the other state championship game on the same field, beating defending champion Bellows Falls.
That wraps up the day for Woodstock Union High School sports. We’ll see you next time!