Her Finest Game

On a warm weekend afternoon in May 2008, on a dry field in southern Houston, the Hockaday Daisies met the girls from St. John’s to decide the Texas state champion in women’s lacrosse. St. John’s was the defending state champion from the year before, and had beaten Hockaday just two weeks earlier to claim the crown as champion of the Southwestern Preparatory Conference. Moreover, the Hockaday girls knew that the Texas state women’s lacrosse title had always been won from a team from south Texas ever since there had been a women’s high school lacrosse tournament. The Hockaday team knew that they had their work cut out for them.

This was going to be Laura Jean Stargardt’s last athletic contest for Hockaday, culminating many years of distinguished athletic endeavor. By the time she as an 18 year old senior, she had been playing competitive athletics at a high level for fourteen years. She started playing on a Hockaday recreational soccer team in Pre-Kindergarten as a five year old. That Hockaday team went on to dominate recreational soccer in their age group for the next six years, finishing as North Dallas U10 champions in 2000. Laura Jean was the linchpin of the defense through all of those years. Most of the girls on that team went on to play select club soccer, and Laura Jean played on a select team through all four years of middle school, alternating between striker (the key offensive player) and sweeper (the key defensive player). She also played softball (pitching one year) and basketball with her Hockaday classmates, including a season playing select basketball.

In 7th and 8th grades, Laura Jean rejoined her Hockaday classmates in playing for school teams for the first time. The Middle School girls played field hockey (fall), soccer (winter) and lacrosse (spring). As a precursor of what was to come, Laura Jean’s middle school cohort on those teams went undefeated through all six middle school seasons. In the Upper School, Laura Jean made varsity her freshman year in soccer and lacrosse. She played on the varsity soccer team all four years of Upper School, winning the Southwestern Preparatory Conference championships in her freshman and senior years. Laura Jean also played on the varsity lacrosse team every year except her sophomore year when she was rehabilitating from the reconstruction of an ACL torn during her sophomore soccer season. Lacrosse in her senior year was Laura Jean’s last season of playing sports for Hockaday, and the lacrosse finals was to be her last interscholastic game…ever.

The Hockaday lacrosse team was clearly the best woman’s lacrosse team in north Texas, but the best lacrosse in the state had always been played in Houston. The year before, in the spring of 2007, the Hockaday girls had shocked the sport by beating St. John’s in a come-from-behind victory to win the SPC championship. Laura Jean scored two goals during that game, including the tying goal as Hockaday overcame the initial St. John’s advantage. An emotionally spent Hockaday lost the next day against a public school team from Houston in the semifinals of the state championship tournament, and St. John’s went on to win the state crown.

In this senior year, Hockaday had faced St. John’s in the regular season and had lost a close, hard fought triple overtime game. St. John’s had then overcome Hockaday in the SPC championship game, a game in which Laura Jean was held off the field for most of the second half, the period during which Hockaday could marshal no offense.


Hockaday had faced the Memorial High School girls the previous day in the semifinals of the women’s lacrosse state tournament. Hockaday had eked out a tie in their regular season meeting, a game played less than two hours after the triple overtime contest against St. John’s. This time Hockaday blew out Memorial in the semifinal tournament game, setting up the rematch with St. John’s for the state title. It was to be one of the most important games in Laura Jean’s long athletic career.

The championship game did not start off well for Hockaday. The St. John’s team scored first, and then they scored twice more. Only five minutes into the game, Hockaday found themselves down 0-3. The Hockaday girls were playing hesitantly and without confidence against a St. John’s team that had already beaten them twice that year.

Then Laura Jean changed the tone of the game. She was passed the ball and possessed it outside of the defensive perimeter, slightly left of the midline. There was one defender marking her. In a signature move, Laura Jean got just the right position on the defender, burst past her and another defender who came over to double team, and split those defenders with a surge of speed. Laura Jean came in alone on the goalie and scored with an accurate shot.

Laura Jean was instrumental in scoring Hockaday’s next goal. She had the ball behind the net, and made an accurate centering pass to sophomore Tori Weatherford, who was crashing in from the front and scored with a one-touch shot.

The third Hockaday goal was another signature move by Laura Jean. She received the ball behind the net, and moved slowly around to her right (counterclockwise around the goal). As she cleared from behind the net, the defender who was shadowing her from the front of the crease came forward to keep Laura Jean away from the goal. Laura Jean turned her back to the girl, and as contact was made, she executed the classic “roll crease” maneuver. In this move, the attacker cradles the stick to her right and tries to turn the corner to her left on the defender by a combination of outrunning the defender and outmuscling her. In this case, Laura Jean’s superior footwork, leg muscles and balance prevailed, and the defender tripped over her feet and fell down. Laura Jean then coasted unopposed across the crease in front of the goalie, picked her spot and fired a shot into the net. With that goal, Hockaday was only down 3-4 and was definitely back in the game.

Shortly after scoring Hockaday’s third goal, Laura Jean came out of the game for a rest. The adrenaline was racing in her so powerfully that she walked down the sideline and threw up into the grass. One of her teammates asked her if she was okay, and Laura Jean just snapped back, “I’m feeling great!” She was back in the game before the first half ended. And Hockaday was in the game, with the score tied 6 - 6 at the half.

The second half was another close, hard fought, see-saw contest. Laura Jean played most of the second half as well. While the game had started with St. John’s clearly dominating and in control, the tide of momentum began to shift towards Hockaday. Taylor Thorton moved to center to take the draws in the second half, and in a game where ball possession is critical to scoring, Taylor won most of the draws for Hockaday. Both defenses, played tough and well, however, keeping the attackers from scoring easily. The Hockaday defense in particular played their best game of the season. The game was tied 10 – 10 with about three minutes to play. Hockaday possessed the ball the entire time, but was not able to get a goal. The game finished in a tie and went into overtime.

Overtime in women’s lacrosse is not a “golden goal” in which the first score wins and the game ends. Overtime consists of two three minutes periods, with the teams switching the goals they defend between the two periods. Luck would not be the primary determinant of the outcome; both teams would have time to execute well on offense and defense.

St. John’s mounted an attack earlier in the overtime period and scored, pulling ahead of Hockaday. Laura Jean had been well-defended in the second half of the game and had not been a key part of the offense. But in overtime, she got focused and determined. She was playing offensive midfielder, and after the St. John’s goal, she walked briskly and directly to the center circle, crouched into her position for the draw, and stared straight ahead in determination. She was in position and ready before most of the other girls got to their places around the circle. She did this after every one of the overtime goals, whether Hockaday’s or St. Johns’. She was obviously focused.

Laura Jean got the ball in the front of the goal, outside of the defenders’ perimeter, shortly after Hockaday won the draw. She got the ball and made a hard charge through the defenders directly at the goal, but she was fouled. This awarded her a free run from the 8 meter line. Laura Jean crouched on the circle, and when the referee blew the whistle, she raced directly at the goal and whipped off a hard shot into the net before any defenders could reach her. She had tied the overtime score at 11 – 11.

St. John’s managed to get possession of the ball and came back to score on Hockaday again, giving St. John’s the advantage in the game, 12 – 11. Once more, Laura Jean responded. From the front of the zone, she made a hard, charging move to the goal, breaking past the defender and beating the goalie with a well-placed shot. With her fourth goal, Laura Jean had once again tied the game and kept Hockaday in it.

Both defenses kept the offenses in check. With less than a minute left in the last overtime period, midfielder Carolyn Smith made the best play of her lacrosse career. She got a pass in a transition from co-captain Halley Huffines and ran up the right side of the field. As she entered the opponent’s zone, she split two defenders, and muscled her way between them and into open space. There was no one between her and the goalie. Carolyn cut across the front of the goal about 10 yards out, from right to left, and as she crossed the middle, she fired a hard left-handed shot that bounced on the ground and in, beating the goalie. While St. John’s won the ensuing draw, the Hockaday defense stole the ball back and ran out the rest of the clock. Hockaday won the Texas state woman’s lacrosse championship with a 13-12 overtime score.

It was Laura Jean’s last interscholastic game, but she finished in style. She scored or contributed to 5 of the team’s 13 goals. More importantly, she scored her goals when they were needed most, to jump start her team at the beginning and to put them into a position in overtime where they could win the game. Of the over 500 competitive games in multiple sports that she played in her youth, this was undoubtedly her finest.