Hollis Brookline's Alyssa Hill (23) and Abbie Ogren (17) lament, along with their teammates, a tough 8-7 Division II finals loss at the hands of Portsmouth on Wednesday night in Bedford. (Telegraph photo by TOM KING)

BEDFORD – Heartbreaker.

The Hollis Brookline High School girls lacrosse team could taste it. They had withstood a Portsmouth rally in the second half of Wednesday night’s Division II championship game, and regained a 7-5 lead on Alyssa Hill’s fourth goal with just over nine minutes to play.

And five minutes later, goalie Hallie Bardani stopped the Clippers’ Julia Roelofs on a restart, and it just seemed like everything was coming up Blue and White.

But it wasn’t meant to be. Portsmouth (18-2) got three goals in the last 2:53, including Charlotte Marston’s tally with 1:32 to play for the game winner in an 8-7 excruciating title loss for the Cavs.

“We played amazing,” said an upset HB coach Jim Maxwell, who is stepping down from the job as he’s leaving the area. “The girls played amazing. I’m proud of every one of them. … We fought (through) adversity, and that’s all I care about.”

Maxwell was irate at officials calls down the stretch that either put the 11-5 Cavs, who got four goals from Alyssa Hill, a player down or gave Portsmouth restarts that they hadn’t been able to take advantage of earlier in the physical contest. The Clippers like to play fast, and they got their wish down the stretch.

“We play fast,” Clippers coach and Souhegan alum JoJo Curro said. “We have a ton of speed and athleticism, and when the game slows down, it’s very hard. We wanted to get the ball going, and we could only do it when we got the ball. They had possession for the majority of this game.

“The momentum at that point, we could feel it, we had it. Every single draw was the most important.”

A Cavs’ turnover gave Portsmouth the ball with just under three minutes left and Portsmouth’s Sally Collins took advantage, converting a feed from Marston to give them life at 7-6 with 2:53 left. Thirty seconds later, Marston scored and the game was tied at 7, the season basically boiling down to the final 2:22.

“I think throughout the game we had good composure, and there were a couple calls at the end that didn’t go our way,” Cavs captain Brook Allanach said. “And I don’t think we got everything together at the end like I thought we were.

“We weren’t scared at all. Their record did not care us.”

Indeed, the Clippers came in having won the last three Division II titles, and owned some regular season victories over some Division I competition. After they took a 1-0 lead on a Mia Smith goal just over three minutes in, the Cavs took control with goals by Abbie Ogren, Allanach and two by Hill, the second what could have been a back breaker with 2.1 seconds left to give HB a 4-2 halftime lead.

“Coming in, we knew Hollis Brookline was a physical team, we talked about all practice preparing ourselves for the physicality,” Curro said. “But I don’t think the girls really understood how physical this game could get. … We needed to take a step back and get composed. In this game, you don’t want to get cards and be a man down.”

They made it 5-2 just over two minutes into the second half on a goal by Hill before an HB yellow card appeared to give the Clippers new life some seven minutes later. In a span of 1:26 they got three scores to break a scoreless span of 17:14, the goals by Sadie Alati, Annabel Talbot and Avery Ruhnke.

But calls also went HB’s way as they were a man up and got a go-ahead goal by Abbey Magnuszewski with 12:11 left and another off a turnover by Hill with just over nine to play for that 7-5 lead.

Down 8-7, the Cavs needed the draw but Portsmouth’s Sally Collins won it and the Clippers ran out the final 1:24.

“We just got unlucky at the end,” Allanach said. “We surprised them big time.”

It’s the silver lining HB had to settle for.