‘The Last Ones Standing’: New Canaan Girls Lax Seniors Forge Lasting Bonds Through Their Sport

In the spring of 2012, five New Canaan eighth-grade girls played in what they later would call an unforgettable multi-state lacrosse tournament at Yale.

The girls—Mia Carroll, Katharine Freiberg, Catherine Granito, Kylie Murphy and Sami Stewart—would end up losing their final game after a last-minute New Canaan travel team penalty allowed Greenwich to tie up the score and force overtime.

“It was one of those heartbreaks,” Carroll, surrounded by her four teammates, recalled on a recent afternoon from NCHS varsity head coach Kristin Woods’ office. An interior room on the high school’s ground-floor level, its walls are dotted with newspapers clippings and photos featuring accomplished Rams athletes.

“But that season we all became so close with one another and it’s pretty cool that the five of us are the last ones standing.”

That they are.

And when the five young women don their jerseys Tuesday night, they will end a chapter of their shared lives in New Canaan marked by friendship, camaraderie, competition and achievement. From elementary school playgrounds to travel team and state tournaments, from team lunches in eighth grade to team dinners in high school, the girls have forged lasting bonds through lacrosse—relationships that culminate Tuesday with Senior Night at Dunning Field, a day they quite literally have had on their calendars since middle school.

“Senior night is kind of like our last game as kids”

Senior Night puts everything into perspective, Granito said.

“You’ve been playing on this field and in this town for so long,” she said. “This is our final goodbye, of sorts, to sports in New Canaan. It’s so shocking, sad and weird to think that next year you’re going to be on a different turf.”

And while it won’t be the last time they step onto Dunning Stadium’s turf, each athlete marks a milestone in the May 3 Ridgefield game. It’s where they’ve played their sport, in middle school tournaments, jamborees and in clinics for which they now serve as instructors. It’s a progression that Murphy described as “crazy to experience, because you don’t really think about being that much older than the eighth graders, but you are.”

At a recent clinic, Woods split the five girls up and said to them, “These used to be you guys. Now you’re the ones people look up to.”

The athletes have embraced the change in roles, from students to leaders.

“Senior Night is kind of like our last game as kids,” Stewart said. “Because the next place we’ll be at is college and it’s really starting to set in for me, and everyone else, that we’re not going to be here next year. And we’re not going to have each other.”

“That was exactly what I needed”

Their impact on New Canaan lacrosse is substantial, according to Woods, who has developed most of them since third grade.

“In their four years of high school, to date, this class won two championships,” Woods said. “Hopefully we can make that four with an FCIAC and state title this year. They’ve definitely watched the program grow as they’ve grown, too. Each one of them brings a little something different to the team that makes us better as a program. They give back. They’ve really contributed quite a bit to not only our varsity program but all of our programs.”

Asked what she would miss most about this senior class, Woods said the characters and people that they are.

“Every single one of them has great personalities,” Woods said. “Individually, I’ve known a lot of them since third grade. I had Katharine Freiberg at East School when she was in third grade and I was teaching. And now I’m seeing them through their senior years. It’s exciting for me to see the progress our program has made—and it’s been because of these five.”

The feeling is mutual.

Freiberg didn’t crack the varsity lineup until her junior season—her desire to play for Woods motivated her, she said.

“I think all girls want to play for her, which speaks to her passion for the sport and the people who play it,” Freiberg said. “She’s just a good person. There are coaches who are just coaches. But coach Woods makes such an effort with everybody.”

Carroll admits to wanting to “show off” for the varsity coach because each opportunity in front of her was a chance to impress.

An example of Woods’ ability to connect with her athletes came during last year’s preseason. Murphy had wowed her coach in beating defenders with ease, but when the season started and the attacker struggled, Woods pulled her aside.

“She told me, ‘In tryouts you stood out so much. You were beating and getting by people. Now you seem so timid and not as confident,’ ” Murphy recalled. “And that was exactly what I needed. And from then on I contributed more and was back to where I wanted and needed to be.”

“Not everything your parents do for you, do you recognize or appreciate right away”

Senior Night will be “bittersweet for all our parents,” Stewart said.

“Because, of course, they want us to keep playing at the high school, and to be with them at home. But I think they’re also really excited to see us grow up and achieve new things to come in our lives.”

The parents themselves have been together on the sidelines just as long as the girls have on the field.

“They’ve formed a team of their own,” Carroll said.

And that team forms “our biggest supporters,” Granito said.

“Not everything your parents do for you, do you recognize or appreciate right away,” the University of Michigan-bound senior said with a smile. “This is the last time our parents are going to have a Senior Night with us. It’s especially bittersweet because we’re about to go to college and I’m not going to have my mom to hold my hand and make me dinner every night.”

“They all taught me a lot”

Next year, Granito will be playing lacrosse in Ann Arbor, Mich.; Carroll at Williams College in Williamstown, Mass.; Freiberg is set to hang up her cleats and stick—at least at the varsity level—and attend the University of Georgia; Murphy will undergo a post-graduate year at the Westminster School in Simsbury, Conn.; and Stewart will play lacrosse at the United States Military Academy in West Point, N.Y.

Even as far back as their eighth-grade team, the five girls envisioned this week’s Senior Night: At the end of that season in 2012, at the height of Facebook’s popularity, Carroll had the foresight to create a calendar event, dated for May, 2016.

Its purpose, they said: “To meet on the turf of Dunning Stadium as high school seniors and play lacrosse together one final time.”

Within the group, Stewart is perhaps the final piece of the puzzle—she moved to New Canaan from Thousand Oaks, Calif. in the fifth grade.

“Coming to New Canaan was so different than what I was used to,” Stewart recalled. “But they all really helped with the transition, and starting lacrosse. They all taught me a lot, not only as players but as teammates.”