It had been about two years since Franklin knocked Waukesha out of the state tournament on a free-position goal in overtime.

On Wednesday night, Waukesha returned the favor.

After the Waukesha defense and senior goaltender Becca McDaniel fended off countless shots from the Sabers in the final minutes of regulation, sophomore Ariana Hinton extended the Lady Nighthawks winning streak to seven games with a free-position goal in overtime to give Waukesha a 5-4 victory at Franklin in the Cool Stick Game of the Week.

“They knocked us out of the playoffs a few years ago in a similar situation in overtime, so it’s kind of sweet justice from our standpoint,” Waukesha coach Bill Paquin said. “It’s nice when you beat a quality opponent because those are the games you could really build upon. And now you feel like you belong.”

Early on, it looked like surging Waukesha (9-1) would prove too much for Franklin (5-4), who is in the midst of a youth movement. Sophomore Lauryn Lopez put the Lady Nighthawks on the board just five seconds into the game. She finished the game with two goals for Waukesha.

“She has a very bright future ahead of her as a sophomore,” Paquin said. “The biggest difference in her game from a freshman to now is, you’re seeing some of the lax IQ — she knows where to be, when to cut, those types of things.”

Franklin responded with a run of three unanswered goals, including two by junior Lauren Schwartz. The Sabers took a 3-2 lead into halftime, but Waukesha bounced back with goals from Lopez and junior Libby Abts to take their first lead of the game with 15 minutes, 14 seconds left in the second half.

It looked as if the Waukesha defense would pitch a shutout the rest of the way until junior Jillian Krueger deposited a goal with 1:55 left in regulation, tying the game at 4. The Sabers had plenty of opportunities to score again in those final minutes, but the defense – led by senior Kaylee Keller – plus superb goaltending by McDaniel sent the game into sudden victory.

“My defense did a really good job of getting their sticks in there and tipped some balls away, and I was just getting balls out of the way,” McDaniel said. “We really wanted to put our energy out there and get a good win to keep our winning streak going so we could go into these tougher games energized and ready to go.”

Franklin dropped its fourth straight game during a brutal stretch that had the Sabers playing back-to-back games two weeks in a row against four of the top teams in Wisconsin (University School of Milwaukee, Whitefish Bay/Nicolet/Shorewood, Arrowhead and Waukesha).

“Every team wants to win every game, but ultimately, we grew today with our first overtime game for our younger players on the field,” said Jules Shearer, Franklin’s new head coach who took over for Jill Kyhn. “We have a really young team, and I thought it was exciting that we kept the score close.”

Franklin resumes conference play on Wednesday with a home game against Cedarburg. Waukesha heads to Middleton Monday night for a non-conference match.

Every week, WisconsinLacrosse.com will highlight a select girls lacrosse game in Wisconsin. Made possible by a donation from CoolStick.

Joe Amplo is living the lacrosse lifer’s fantasy these days.

Not only is he the men’s lacrosse head coach for Marquette University – a program on the rise in just its eighth year of existence with a 6-5 overall record (2-1 in the Big East Conference) this season – but he also served as an assistant coach on the U.S. men’s lacrosse team, which won the final game over Canada last August at the Federation of International Lacrosse (FIL) World Championships in Israel. He also has been tapped as an assistant for the 2022 national team, which will compete in the FIL tournament in British Columbia.

“It’s a dream job,” Amplo said of his post with the U.S. national team. “It’s cool that I had that opportunity and I can talk about it to people [in Wisconsin] and make the lacrosse world seem a little bit smaller to folks around here.”

Amplo served as an assistant in charge of defense under John Danowski, who coached Amplo at Hofstra and currently runs the Duke men’s lacrosse program.

“It’s about who you know in the world, and [John] is a good one to know,” Amplo said.

As Amplo quickly discovered, coaching professionals at the international level is completely different than running an NCAA Division 1 program. For starters, Amplo and his coaching colleagues only had seven interactions with the national team before a three-day training camp just one week before the start of the tournament. After that, the U.S. team came together for two weeks in Israel, where Amplo saw the players gel as a cohesive unit.

“That’s when we saw the growth of the team and the uniqueness of the experience was evident,” Amplo said. “I was curious to see if we could build a team that feels like a team compared to the college environment. Can this group of human beings that is great at the game fall in love with each other and become a team in that short amount of time?”

A 9-8 victory over Canada in the FIL championship game is proof it is possible. Amplo learned that time is irrelevant when players come together for a common goal – even when they’re the best in the world with the egos to match.

“What’s relevant is there has to be this reward at the end that everybody wants so badly, and there has to be clarity from whomever is in charge that this is who we’re going to be,” Amplo said. “These men didn’t care to be the superstar and didn’t care who got the credit — all they wanted to do was win.”

Even though Amplo now has international lacrosse experience on his resume, he is still keeping an eye on the Wisconsin scene. His elite travel club — Amplify Lacrosse — sponsors the Wisconsin Lacrosse Federation’s Boys High School Game of the Week, which gives Amplo a front-row view of the growth of the sport locally.

“The game is growing exponentially and the talent level is rising,” Amplo said. “This is now becoming an unbelievably fertile recruiting ground we have to look at. We should have at least one player each year that we should strongly consider or recruit from the state of Wisconsin.”

The Wisconsin lacrosse community reached a major milestone during Marquette’s recent scrimmage against powerhouse Maryland. At one point, the Golden Eagles featured three Wisconsin-based players – Logan Kreinz (Kettle Moraine), Jordan Schmid (Kettle Moraine) and Quintin Arnett (Arrowhead) – on the field at the same time.

“I turned to the bench and said, ‘There are three guys on the field from the state of Wisconsin playing against the University of Maryland on a lacrosse field,’” Amplo said. “That is remarkable.”

Mike Gaeding fmr Arrowhead goalie class of ’16 now the keep for Nebraska.

Fall is a season of changes. Players are returning to school while coaches and respective boards begin planning for the coming season. Lacrosse may be a spring sport, but thanks to the continued growth it has experienced here in Wisconsin, planning begins well in advance of that March start date.

The Wisconsin Lacrosse Federation provides participation numbers back to 2004. At the time there were a grand total of 19 high school teams in the state – with only one of those teams representing high school girls’ lacrosse. By 2009, participation numbers more than tripled – jumping from 452 to 1507 players stretched across 30 boys and 12 girls’ teams at the high school level and now including 33 youth teams. Since 2009, Wisconsin lacrosse has continued to grow with last year’s participation totaling 6,531 players spread across 134 high school and 225 youth teams. Ten new programs joined at the high school level in 2016 alone with six more being added at the youth level as well.

As these numbers continue to grow, so too do infrastructure and support needs across the board – from the individual team level to conference boards and the statewide chapter. Every new team needs coaches that know the sport and can teach it to potentially brand new players. With each team comes the need for a strong parents’ group or board to support the organization – especially as many area lacrosse teams still operate as clubs, not school-sponsored sports. And with each team added, the corresponding number of referees and umpires grows as well.

Looking at the growth of Wisconsin lacrosse from a player engagement perspective is exciting – when you start to consider the growth in behind-the-scenes support needed to sustain these numbers, it is incredible. Tallying the hours spent training new coaches and officials, scheduling games, planning practices, raising funds, coordinating transportation … and the list goes on … would be quite the undertaking. Because for every game played, every team added, every season started, hours upon hours have gone into making it run smoothly. And much of that is due to legions of volunteers who sincerely care about the growth of the sport and providing a positive experience for players.

As a former player and now coach, I cannot express enough my appreciation for the work that goes on behind the scenes. Playing for Arrowhead right as the program was starting – there was one other girls’ team in our area. Bussing out to Madison was how we got playing time. Looking back, now with my coaching and board member hats on, I realize the amount of planning that went into those first few seasons. From the seemingly small – parents coordinating someone to make snacks for the bus since we wouldn’t have time to eat between school and departure – to larger, more logistics based – finding coaches and practice space or how to fit a new team into the overall schedule – it all made for a very positive experience as a player and moved me to continue being involved in the sport post-high school. Now, as a coach, I cannot thank our parents or board enough. Their managing of the infrastructure of our club allows me to coach and focus on our players, something I am so very grateful for.

Growth of Wisconsin lacrosse shows no signs of slowing. Every season has new players picking up a stick for the first time at every level – and that is something to be excited about. With this growth, behind-the-scenes needs will continue to expand. As a former-player-turned-coach, I encourage you to find ways to support this expansion. There is constantly more work to be done and additional help needed. In just five years we’ve grown from 3,973 to 6,531 players. Can you imagine what the next five years will bring?