Still swinging, Igoe has Franklin soaring - Boston High School Blog - ESPN
Any and all criticism and feedback would be appreciated. And yes, I know I need to invest in a clip-on mic. Brutal.
==================
FRANKLIN, Mass. -- If you blinked, you'd miss her.
A blur streaking up the field, she dodges by one defender and slips by another with the elusiveness of a flickering flame. Her deceptive quickness is only matched by her tremendous upper body strength, which she uses to bully her opponent, carving out just enough space to make her move.
Stopping on a dime, she turns and leaps off one foot, rocketing a laser destined for the top left corner of the goal. By the time the goalkeeper can react, the ball is already bouncing off the back netting and onto the turf below.
There's no celebration, no congratulatory handshakes, not even a smile. Just silence.
She calmly approaches the defense -- each player hanging on her every movement -- and pauses.
"Again," she says, lifting the whistle nestled around her neck up to her lips.
Meet Kristin Igoe. To the lacrosse world, she's a two-time state champion, Boston College's all-time leading scorer and a 2013 U.S. Women's World Cup gold medalist.
But to these girls gathered on the turf field of Franklin High School, the 25-year-old simply goes by "Coach."
A Wait, and an Explosion
If they weren't already on a first-name basis, they were surely working towards it.
More often than not, whenever Framingham head coach Stacey Freda glanced into the stands, Shari Krasnoo would be there, sandwiched in between over-enthusiastic parents and rowdy high school students. Then the head coach of the Boston College women's lacrosse team, Krasnoo was an ardent observer of the Flyers' progress.
But even that familiarity couldn't prepare Freda for the conversation the pair would exchange one night in 2004.
"She said, 'I want that kid.' [And pointed at Igoe]," Freda recalled to The Boston Globe of that conversation. "I said, 'She's just a freshman, she barely plays.'
"She said, 'I know, but she's going to be good. I want her.'"
It's tough to blame Freda for her initial disbelief.
After all, it was only that fall that she had pulled Igoe aside after a soccer match and encouraged her to come try out for the lacrosse team. Not to mention, as a newcomer to the game -- she had only picked up a stick just a couple months prior to tryouts -- Igoe still struggled with grasping basic fundamentals, such as throwing and catching.
Yet there Krasnoo was on that fateful spring evening, the head coach of a Division 1 program, eagle-eyeing over a zealous freshman buried on the depth chart of a Framingham roster dripping with talent.
Was she jumping the gun? Maybe. But Krasnoo certainly wasn't alone in her admiration.
"I only remember playing against [Igoe] because she was so unbelievably fast in high school," recalled Notre Dame (Hingham) head coach Meredith Frank, who played at Westwood from 2002-05. "Her speed...There's no way to describe it. She was so athletic.
"You could tell she was destined for success."
But speed alone can only take you so far, especially on a squad ripe with athletic girls, many who grew up playing the sport from a young age.
So there Igoe sat, melting away at the end of the bench, waiting for an opportunity. Her name only called upon for mop-up duty late in blowouts, not much else.
One could argue that it was this experience that birthed her now trademark unwavering drive and insatiable hunger to improve.
"I knew if I wanted to catch up [to my teammates] I had to work out on my own," Igoe said of her mentality after that freshman year. "I just kept a stick in my hand as much as I could. Whether it was throwing and catching with friends or playing wall ball, I did whatever I could to get better."
The hard work behind the scenes immediately paid dividends.
Over the next three years, Igoe played a starring role on a Flyers squad that put together a 71-2-1 record over that span, including a flawless 50-0 mark and back-to-back state titles during her final two seasons. She left Framingham as one of the state's most lethal scorers, racking up 201 goals and 151 assists.
Three-time Eastern Mass. All-Star, two-time high school All-American, two-time Under Armour All-American. There was hardly an award or recognition Igoe didn't get her hands on.
Suddenly, the girl who was told to simply pass the ball away if she ever gained possession had quickly blossomed into the dynamic playmaker opponents feared and teammates often looked to pass to.
"Kristin was amazing, but she never let any of that attention get to her," said Framingham (2007-10) teammate Tanner Guarino. "She was very humble and the type of captain who always had a team-first mentality. She would go out of her way to share her knowledge for the game and push each one of us to get better."
Soon word spread outside the halls of Framingham High about the selfless leader with a natural mastery of the game.
It wasn't long after that that colleges began knocking on the door. Among the suitors were annual lacrosse powerhouses Northwestern, North Carolina and Penn.
But while most girls would jump at the chance to play for an elite program at the collegiate level, Igoe isn't most girls.
"I wanted to go somewhere that I could help build the program," Igoe admitted. "Northwestern had won three straight national titles at the time and North Carolina was up there. So I wanted to go where I could make a big impact and bring a lower level team up to a high level."
Enter: Boston College.
The Eagles' new head coach Bowen Holden -- who had replaced Krasnoo at the helm in 2005 -- had huge visions for the future of the program. After years of mediocrity, she was determined to raise the team's level of playing to match that of its peers in the tough ACC.
Igoe seemed like the perfect building block.
"I knew from the first moment I saw her that she was going to be something special," recalled Holden, who had kept tabs on Igoe since she was a sophomore. "She had all the tools and was still growing into her body. But her speed alone was something I knew we wanted to bring to Boston College."
A program on the rise and proximity to home? It was a no-brainer for Igoe.
(CONT'D)
Any and all criticism and feedback would be appreciated. And yes, I know I need to invest in a clip-on mic. Brutal.
==================
FRANKLIN, Mass. -- If you blinked, you'd miss her.
A blur streaking up the field, she dodges by one defender and slips by another with the elusiveness of a flickering flame. Her deceptive quickness is only matched by her tremendous upper body strength, which she uses to bully her opponent, carving out just enough space to make her move.
Stopping on a dime, she turns and leaps off one foot, rocketing a laser destined for the top left corner of the goal. By the time the goalkeeper can react, the ball is already bouncing off the back netting and onto the turf below.
There's no celebration, no congratulatory handshakes, not even a smile. Just silence.
She calmly approaches the defense -- each player hanging on her every movement -- and pauses.
"Again," she says, lifting the whistle nestled around her neck up to her lips.
Meet Kristin Igoe. To the lacrosse world, she's a two-time state champion, Boston College's all-time leading scorer and a 2013 U.S. Women's World Cup gold medalist.
But to these girls gathered on the turf field of Franklin High School, the 25-year-old simply goes by "Coach."
A Wait, and an Explosion
If they weren't already on a first-name basis, they were surely working towards it.
More often than not, whenever Framingham head coach Stacey Freda glanced into the stands, Shari Krasnoo would be there, sandwiched in between over-enthusiastic parents and rowdy high school students. Then the head coach of the Boston College women's lacrosse team, Krasnoo was an ardent observer of the Flyers' progress.
But even that familiarity couldn't prepare Freda for the conversation the pair would exchange one night in 2004.
"She said, 'I want that kid.' [And pointed at Igoe]," Freda recalled to The Boston Globe of that conversation. "I said, 'She's just a freshman, she barely plays.'
"She said, 'I know, but she's going to be good. I want her.'"
It's tough to blame Freda for her initial disbelief.
After all, it was only that fall that she had pulled Igoe aside after a soccer match and encouraged her to come try out for the lacrosse team. Not to mention, as a newcomer to the game -- she had only picked up a stick just a couple months prior to tryouts -- Igoe still struggled with grasping basic fundamentals, such as throwing and catching.
Yet there Krasnoo was on that fateful spring evening, the head coach of a Division 1 program, eagle-eyeing over a zealous freshman buried on the depth chart of a Framingham roster dripping with talent.
Was she jumping the gun? Maybe. But Krasnoo certainly wasn't alone in her admiration.
"I only remember playing against [Igoe] because she was so unbelievably fast in high school," recalled Notre Dame (Hingham) head coach Meredith Frank, who played at Westwood from 2002-05. "Her speed...There's no way to describe it. She was so athletic.
"You could tell she was destined for success."
But speed alone can only take you so far, especially on a squad ripe with athletic girls, many who grew up playing the sport from a young age.
So there Igoe sat, melting away at the end of the bench, waiting for an opportunity. Her name only called upon for mop-up duty late in blowouts, not much else.
One could argue that it was this experience that birthed her now trademark unwavering drive and insatiable hunger to improve.
"I knew if I wanted to catch up [to my teammates] I had to work out on my own," Igoe said of her mentality after that freshman year. "I just kept a stick in my hand as much as I could. Whether it was throwing and catching with friends or playing wall ball, I did whatever I could to get better."
The hard work behind the scenes immediately paid dividends.
Over the next three years, Igoe played a starring role on a Flyers squad that put together a 71-2-1 record over that span, including a flawless 50-0 mark and back-to-back state titles during her final two seasons. She left Framingham as one of the state's most lethal scorers, racking up 201 goals and 151 assists.
Three-time Eastern Mass. All-Star, two-time high school All-American, two-time Under Armour All-American. There was hardly an award or recognition Igoe didn't get her hands on.
Suddenly, the girl who was told to simply pass the ball away if she ever gained possession had quickly blossomed into the dynamic playmaker opponents feared and teammates often looked to pass to.
"Kristin was amazing, but she never let any of that attention get to her," said Framingham (2007-10) teammate Tanner Guarino. "She was very humble and the type of captain who always had a team-first mentality. She would go out of her way to share her knowledge for the game and push each one of us to get better."
Soon word spread outside the halls of Framingham High about the selfless leader with a natural mastery of the game.
It wasn't long after that that colleges began knocking on the door. Among the suitors were annual lacrosse powerhouses Northwestern, North Carolina and Penn.
But while most girls would jump at the chance to play for an elite program at the collegiate level, Igoe isn't most girls.
"I wanted to go somewhere that I could help build the program," Igoe admitted. "Northwestern had won three straight national titles at the time and North Carolina was up there. So I wanted to go where I could make a big impact and bring a lower level team up to a high level."
Enter: Boston College.
The Eagles' new head coach Bowen Holden -- who had replaced Krasnoo at the helm in 2005 -- had huge visions for the future of the program. After years of mediocrity, she was determined to raise the team's level of playing to match that of its peers in the tough ACC.
Igoe seemed like the perfect building block.
"I knew from the first moment I saw her that she was going to be something special," recalled Holden, who had kept tabs on Igoe since she was a sophomore. "She had all the tools and was still growing into her body. But her speed alone was something I knew we wanted to bring to Boston College."
A program on the rise and proximity to home? It was a no-brainer for Igoe.
(CONT'D)
