Last month, Walton ladies lacrosse team dethroned perennial state champion Milton, 9-8, in the Georgia large-class (6A) state title game.
“It is hard to put into words how we felt after making school history,” said Riley Ewing, whose team won its first state crown. “We were just filled with such pride… pride for our community, pride for our school, and pride for our family… It was such an emotional win for us because we poured everything we had into that game and to see our long sought after goal become a reality was priceless.”
This state championship game will go down as one of the year’s major upsets. Milton High School (19-3) had won six straight championship and 10 of the past 11 playoffs. Milton ladies lacrosse was ranked among the top 15 all year in the STEPS North America Rankings and has been a regular Top 20 team for years in all national polls. The Eagles, who play a national schedule, had won 83 straight games against Georgia teams and had not lost in 90 games against state foes.
Walton had lost to Milton in the state final each of the past two years and fell to the Eagles, 14-9, earlier this year. But behind balanced scoring from Ewing (two goals), Erin McBride (two goals) and Hunter Corvin (two goals), Walton led much of the game and used strong defense to stymie the vaunted Milton (19-3) attack. This time, Walton led, 6-4, at halftime and then stretched the lead to 8-5 before Milton pulled within 8-7 and then 9-8 with 2:04 to play. But the Walton defense held to win the state championship.
Reprinted from EAST COBBER’s June/July 2016 issue
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