by John Osborn ·
Friday, April 24, 2026
Senior co-captain Joana Juliano looks for a pass. (Photos by Lisa Aciukewicz)
Bromfield’s girls lacrosse team dug itself too deep a hole in the first half Thursday, falling at home to first-place Westborough 13-8, despite a spirited second-half comeback that briefly brought the Trojans within three goals.
The loss was Bromfield’s first of the season, leaving the Trojans one game behind the unbeaten Rangers in the Midland-Wachusett B standings.
Westborough led 5-1 after the first quarter and 10-3 at halftime before Bromfield found its footing. The Trojans held the Rangers scoreless in the third quarter. Kate Wicks scored on an assist by freshman Caroline Caiozzo followed by senior co-captain Hanna Wicks who scored in the final seconds to cut the deficit to 10-5. Westborough scored once more early in the fourth quarter to push its lead to six, but Bromfield responded with three consecutive goals to pull within three points at 8-11 and force a timeout.
When play resumed, senior goalie Darragh O’Connor made a key save at the 1:20 mark to keep the Trojans alive. But Westborough scored twice in the final minute to seal the win.
Senior co-captain Darragh O’Connor successfully blocks a goal at close range.
Hanna Wicks led Bromfield with four goals on six shots. Her sister, sophomore Kate Wicks, added three goals, and sophomore Clementine Roy scored one. Senior co-captain Joana Juliano and sophomore Saya Dion each contributed two assists. O’Connor finished with six saves.
Coach Ali Wicks—whose daughters Hanna and Kate both appear on the roster—said the first half was unrecognizable from the team she knows. “The first quarter in particular, we were sad news bears for a little while,” she said. “That’s not who we are. We caved a little under their pressure.”
The turnaround in the second half, she said, came down to switching the team’s mentality. “I looked at them and said, ‘They’re not better than us. We just have to hack their system,’” Wicks said. “We outscored them in the second half. We were three goals away. At no point did I think even one kid was giving up, and that’s just huge growth for us.”
Co-captain Wicks said nerves got the better of the team early. “We came into the game knowing that Westborough was going to be the hardest competition we’ve seen yet, and I think that made us a little bit nervous and scared,” she said. “In the second half, we recognized who we were. We saw the potential that we had.”
Hanna Wicks watches her shot hit the back of the net as teammate Joana Juliano looks on.
Juliano said the adjustment was about slowing down and trusting the team’s fundamentals. “We figured out who we were, and we started slowing down the ball,” she said. “We kept trying to force stuff that wasn’t going to work, but we figured it out. We went back to our simple two-man plays—stuff that always works.”
Westborough’s zone defense also caused problems in the first half before the Trojans found a counter. “We were not used to zone defenses,” Hanna Wicks said. “We found that having a double stack and then cutting one after another was getting us open cuts and letting us get in some goals.”
In a double stack, two attackers line up one behind the other just outside the scoring zone. When the first cuts toward the ball and draws her defender, the second slips into the open lane, creating a quick passing opportunity near the goal.
The Trojans rebounded from Thursday’s loss with an 11-6 win over Oakmont (2-4-0) on April 18. Bromfield (6-1-0) travels to Nashoba Regional (7-1-0) April 27 in a nonleague contest.