A few years ago, Skip Harris, the head coach of the Essex (Vt.) girls’ lacrosse team, was standing in the school gymnasium.
There were 18 banners for girls’ cross country. There were 16 for boys’ ice hockey and cross country. There were seven state title banners for football, three for boys’ lacrosse, four for boys’ tennis, three for boys’ basketball, nine for girls’ basketball.
And none for girls’ lacrosse.
“When you go into the Essex High School, [you see] banners and banners and banners,” Harris tells The The Burlington Free Press. “At the beginning of the season, I said, “There is not a lacrosse banner up there. We’ve got to get one up there and that has been the goal since Day One.”
Harris has crafted a nice story on the eastern banks of Lake Champlain. The Hornets had won exactly one game in 2022, but completely turned it around in two years. Under Harris, the team is one which has developed offensive flair, which was on full display in the Hornets’ 12-3 win in the Vermont Principals’ Association’s Division I championship final over Champlain Valley (Vt.) Union.
Breya Montague is a midfielder of considerable prowess, and will be playing for Southern Connecticut State University next year. She was imperious in the attack end of the pitch, scoring a double hat trick/
“For all of our hard work to pay off, it’s really rewarding,” Montague tells The Free Press. “It was amazing, I graduated yesterday and then winning this today — it’s just the best way to go out.”
On the other end of the pitch, goaltender Sierra Harris was money. She shut out CVU in the second half, making stop after stop, as part of her overall 13-save effort.
