Celebrating The 25th Anniversary Of The Goucher Women's Lacrosse Final Four Run
BALTIMORE, Md. - Twenty-five years ago, the Goucher College women's lacrosse team reached the Final Four of the NCAA Division III Women's Lacrosse Tournament. In honor of that historic feat for the women's lacrosse squad, the team will be inducted in the fall as the inaugural Team of Distinction in the Goucher Athletics Hall of Fame.
In addition, we are going to look back at that team with some help from members of the 2021 women's lacrosse team. Due to the pandemic, we could not celebrate in person but had four current members of the women's lacrosse team interview players from the 1996 women's lacrosse team over zoom in May that also played the same position. We will release those videos on the website and Facebook, and we will also release three short clips of each interview on Instagram (@gouchergophers) and Twitter (@gouchersports) on the designated release day.
Take a look at the schedule for the video releases below, and then keep reading a feature on the building of the team and that great season.
Women's Lacrosse 25th Anniversary Celebration Release Schedule
Monday, June 14 (today) – Release of The Building Of A Team of Distinction: The 1996 Women's Lacrosse Team
Wednesday, June 16 – Video: Mackenzie Nase interviews Kim Donoghue (Defenders)
Tuesday, June 22 – Video: Julia Gazzola interviews Michele Mohlman Dombrowski (Midfielders)
Thursday, June 24 – Video: Delany Comerford interviews Meredith Brown (Defenders)
Wednesday, June 30 – Video: Abbie McHerron interviews Crystal Butcher (Goalkeepers)
The Building Of A Team of Distinction: The 1996 Women's Lacrosse Team
During the 1990s, eight Goucher athletics teams won a conference championship, and eight teams also played in the NCAA Division III Tournament. The 1996 Gophers women's lacrosse team reached the pinnacle with a trip to the NCAA Division III Women's Lacrosse Final Four.
It has been 25 years since that magical run, and while it is a great accomplishment to be the only team in Goucher College history to reach the Final Four, there is also this sentiment that the loss to Middlebury is not one to celebrate. Goucher Athletics Hall of Famer Michele Mohlman Dombrowski said that they walked off that field on May 18, 1996, wanting another shot to put it all together.
To fully appreciate the women's lacrosse accomplishments, we first must go back to the 1991-92 season and the first season under Goucher Hall of Fame coach Andrea (Ange) Bradley. At the helm of both the field hockey and women's lacrosse team, the field hockey team went 2-7 overall and 0-3 in conference play with only seven players, and the women's lacrosse team went 3-10. The women's lacrosse could have a small celebration by matching a program-best three wins.
Bradley was not satisfied with those results and brought in 12 players for field hockey in the 1992 season. That first class of players included future Goucher Hall of Famers Dombrowski, and Chrissy Czajkowski, who only played field hockey, and Courtney Crangi, who played only lacrosse except for one year of field hockey as a sophomore. Meredith Brown played both field hockey and women's lacrosse was also a part of that class, while Crystal Butcher and Kim Donoghue joined the group for both field hockey and women's lacrosse the following year. Another Goucher Hall of Famer Kristin Carey Shultz joined the women's lacrosse team in 1995. Three Hall of Famers from one program is only matched by Kyle Hannon's three Hall of Famers for men's lacrosse from the 2010 and 2012 Landmark Conference championship teams.
"I was looking for athletes/players - if they played both, it was a bonus since lacrosse was an easier game to pick up later in life. I focused mostly on finding field hockey players and then taught some how to play the game," said Bradley. "That group of athletes were very special - they were competitive and loved to win, and enjoyed a challenge, so to them to learn a new sport was another opportunity to compete. The challenge was that the numbers did not necessarily share the same competitive desire or vision I shared. So it only made sense to have the players I recruited to build and win in hockey bring that same desire to the lax program. The addition of Crangi and Carey took the team to another level."
"My first year, we didn't have a lot of players that had lacrosse experience," said Donoghue. "Ang went to the field hockey players and said we were going to be playing lacrosse too."
"I do not think that anyone came in knowing what the record was or about history," said Dombrowski. "We all came to Goucher for our own reasons, and I think the biggest key was how the team came together. It was just not a unity aspect, but a sense of purpose. You would be hard-pressed to find a group of people that are as competitive as that group. As much as it was Ang pushing us, it was us pushing each other and not wanting to let the team down."
Butcher came to Goucher to play field hockey. She had never seen a lacrosse game, so her addition to the women's lacrosse team might have been the surprise ingredient that the team needed.
"Ang was very convincing to have me join the women's lacrosse team," said Butcher. "She told me that I needed to stay in shape. She was building her team from scratch, and she didn't have a goalkeeper. She said, 'try it, you have been a goalkeeper before, but it's a little different.' I had never seen lacrosse before, and the first game that I saw was the first game that I played."
Butcher became a two-time All-Conference and All-Region player and earned All-American Third Team status in the 1996 season.
"Crystal was a fierce and fearless competitor on the hockey field - she was quick, a good interceptor, a good communicator, and read angles well. I asked her to try goalkeeper position - one that requires guts, leadership, the ability to read angles and catch a ball," said Bradley. "She took it on and embraced her role. She learned the position, studied, practiced, and grew in her role and confidence. She never allowed the highs to get too high and the lows to get too low - she had the perfect growth mindset as she approached new tasks. It is no surprise that she mastered her craft - she was a competitor and determined to succeed in her role and help her team."
The field hockey team had instant success, going 10-7 in 1992, 10-7-1 in 1993, and 15-4-1 in 1994 to win the Capital Athletic Conference and Goucher's first bid as a school to the NCAA Division III Tournament. The women's lacrosse team went 7-6 in 1993, 5-7 in 1994 after Crangi missed the year with an injury, and then went 13-1 in 1995 and won the CAC title. Despite the success, invitations to the NCAA Division III Tournament did not include Goucher.
"It was an amazing season, and one full of constant surprise and upsets - it was a chance to understand how good that team was," said Bradley. "I can't clearly remember the emotion of not being selected, however, I know it is what I always expect from myself and my team, so when it doesn't happen there are always the emotions that revolve around failure to meet a goal. Where we came from was a success in and of itself, they were an amazing team."
In 1995, the Gophers lost its first competition of the season before winning 13 straight to end the season, including wins against NCAA Division I opponents Virginia Tech, St. Joseph's, and American.
"There was this one school that had fraternities set up around the field, and I remember they were talking trash because we went from not being good to being good," said Dombrowski. "Selections for NCAA were way different back then, and there were only eight AQs. We sprang on the scene in my junior year."
"We knew there wasn't a lot of pressure on us. We were like 'okay let's see what happens,' and it kept building and building from there," said Donoghue. "We realized that we could do it with a lot of motivation. We kind of surprised ourselves. We went into the following year excited to see what we could do."
Bradley, who is now the head coach at Syracuse for field hockey, left to become an assistant coach at Iowa after the 1994-95 season. Kathy Frick took over and continued to have success in 1995-96. The field hockey team went 13-4-2 and lost in the CAC Tournament but became the first Goucher team to receive an at-large bid to the NCAA Tournament. The Blue and Gold lost in penalty strokes in overtime.
After being denied a spot in the NCAA Tournament in 1995, the women's lacrosse team added some teams that would help their resume, including 1995 NCAA Tournament teams Hartwick, Rowan, and Ursinus and traditional postseason contenders Franklin & Marshall, McDaniel, and Frostburg State according to the 1996 season preview.
The squad started the season with four straight wins to run their winning streak to 17 games after winning the last 13 games of the 1995 season. The winning streak was stopped with a 14-13 loss to Amherst at home but would start a 14-game winning streak with a convincing 27-6 win against Susquehanna.
Goucher went 3-0 in conference play and then won the first-ever CAC Tournament with an 18-3 win against Salisbury State in the semifinals, and an 18-12 win against Mary Washington in the championship game.
Despite winning the conference tournament, the team had some work to do to add to its resume. The Blue and Gold defeated Franklin & Marshall and Hartwick in the first seven games of the season and then defeated Frostburg State, Rowan and Ursinus after winning the CAC crown to wrap up the regular season.
Goucher was ranked second in the NCAA Tournament and received a home game against Roanoke in the quarterfinals.
"I remember the nerves, the feeling, and the excitement of the NCAA Tournament," said Butcher.
"We got to play a home game, and so many people were there," said Donoghue. "Courtney Crangi was on fire that day, so I just sat back and watched on defense."
Crangi was on fire that day after posting 10 goals and six assists for 16 points to set an NCAA Tournament record in each offensive category. The squad defeated the Maroons 28-16, and the combined 44 goals also set a new NCAA Tournament standard.
The win against Roanoke earned the Gophers a trip to the NCAA Division III Tournament Final Four at Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Pa. The senior's on the team graduated before its Final Four matchup and even wore their uniforms under their graduation gowns. They then drove up separate from the team and met the rest of their teammates on the practice field in Bethlehem.
The win against Roanoke was the first NCAA win for several members of the team after a pair of losses in the national postseason in field hockey. The win was also the second NCAA Tournament win for Goucher, as a whole, after the men's basketball team shocked the defending national champions Lebanon Valley in the first round in 1994-95.
The team then lost 21-12 to Middlebury in the NCAA Final Four. Dombrowski, who played on the two field hockey teams that went to the national tournament, also played on the 1995 women's basketball team that received an at-large bid.
"Every NCAA experience was different because the sports were different, but from an experience standpoint you knew what to expect," said Dombrowski. "For me, the biggest thing that they did was made you appreciate them. The difference between field hockey, basketball, and lacrosse, is that with lacrosse when it ended, it ended. For those of us that were seniors, we were done."
A team that did not have the great start to a successful turnaround sounds like a movie.
"Someone once called us the "Bad News Bears" because where we started to progressing into the Final Four was amazing," said Donoghue. "You start from the beginning and go from there and have the opportunity to keep improving."
"It was excellent coaching, and Ang built a family and mental toughness," said Brown. "We just had a real hard go hard or go home attitude. We were fully dedicated and all in it together. We are all inspired to do our best."
It has been 25 years since that season, and for members of that team, it was a great time of their life.
"It was a privilege to play with those top caliber of athletes," said Butcher. "We were all top-tier athletes, and to get all of us together at the same school was amazing."
"It was a great time of my life," said Brown. "It was special because of hockey and lacrosse."
