Bishop Guertin's Lindsay Hult has a determined look defending against Pinerton's Isabella Pinardi during Tuesday's Division I girls lacrosse title game in Exeter. (Telegraph photo by TOM KING)

EXETER – This was a team that was championship or bust.

The Bishop Guertin High School girls lacrosse team couldn’t wait to get back to defending their 2019 championship after the pandemic canceled its 2020 season.

In 2021, they’re champions again, and by a wide margin.

“My freshman year, that was one of the best nights of my life, winning the championship,” Guertin’s leading scorer, junior Rylee Bouvier said. “A buzzer beater of a game against Pinkerton.

“So waiting this long, all we wanted to do was get back out on the field. We couldn’t have wished for a better ending.”

The Bishop Guertin girls lacrosse team celebrates its 20-3 Division I state title win over Pinkerton this past Tuesday in Exeter. (Telegraph photo by TOM KING)

But how did they dominate the Astros in the rematch, two years removed, by a 20-3 margin, for their third straight crown? Or better put, did they expect to?

“We knew we had a lot of talent coming back,” Bouvier said. “We didn’t miss many girls. We lost a few seniors, but not too many. We were a really young team in the year that got cut short (last year). So we came back with the core of our offense and defense, we’ve been playing together for a long time.

“We expected a big season. But nothing like this. Going 19-0 is a dream. We didn’t want to let up. It’s a perfect ending.”

“I think we had some idea,” Guertin senior Lindsay Hult said. “But we didn’t think we’d be ending the year 20-3 in the state championship. We worked so hard for it, we deserved it.”

The Cardinals made big news early in the spring when it was revealed they had 16 players committed to colleges – even a JV player, and that includes juniors like Bouvier, who is headed to Stanford. But what was a team that could compete and tough out championship games that were anyone’s game in the past suddenly turned into a dominant force in Division I.

Bishop Guertin's Amelia Piercy tries to control the loose ball as teammate LIndsay Hult (17) and Pinkerton's Erin Tewksbury look on during the Cards' 20-3 state title win this past Tuesday in Exeter. (Telegraph photo by TOM KING)

What happened? Guertin has a lot of players who play off-season lacrosse in the New Hampshire Tomahawks program, and that’s a big advantage. But players like Hult and others also play other sports as well. Hult, for example, was on BG’s girls hockey title team this past winter.

“I think the biggest thing we’ve got going is our chemistry,” Hult said. “All of our girls, we have freshmen that hang out with seniors and enjoy their time. It’s not a forced relationship by any means. We just enjoy every moment we spend together. We realized every game in the playoffs could be our last so we gave it our all.”

And they had a lot of “all”. And a lot of players to give them that.

“Even indoors in the winter,” Guertin’s Maddy Keating, who led the Cards with four goals in the finals, said. “We had so much depth, so much talent, and so much heart, I truly thought this was going to be a great season, and that’s how it turned out. Even better.”

Guertin had some close games during the season. The Cards beat Pinkerton twice, but the second time the Astros put up a challenge before falling 11-5. Souhegan gave them a scare, leading late in the first half. But Bedford was the biggest stumbling block; the Bulldogs took a 3-0 lead on BG in their first regular season meeting before fading in a 15-8 game. Then they were down 9-3 to Guertin in the rematch before a push that got them to 9-6.

But of course the classic was the Cards 11-9 win over the Bulldogs in the semis, as BG had to rally from a 7-5 halftime deficit. In most years, when there would be no regional setup, BG-Bedford would have been a state title game.

Guertin coach Leslie Why said that there was a lot of feedback that the Cards were cocky, etc. But she dispelled that notion.

“That’s not the fact,” she said. “We were just different this year. We’re calmer, we’re confident in what we can do. We do the work, we have a game plan, and we put in the hours to do it. And when we get down a couple of goals, we don’t panic anymore.”

Why should they? The other night their depth had eight in the scoring column.

“Two-thirds of the way through the season we started using that depth,” Why said, adding when asked if she felt the Cards were title favorites goin in, “I wasn’t sure about Bedford,And Rob’s (Pinkerton’s Daziel) a great coach, he was just short on resources. Christine (Bedford coach Hodgdon) was short on resources, but man she did a lot with the five or six they had. We just knew they were probably going to run out of gas. That was the hope.”

Bedford did. Pinkerton didn’t even have a quarter of a tank. But the Cardinals were firing on all cylinders, from the season’s start to its championshp finish.