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WORCESTER — Andover field hockey coach Maureen Noone really didn't know what to expect entering this season after losing her four-year starting goalie to graduation and nearly all of her defenders from the previous year's squad, also to graduation. 

"I just thought losing defense was scary because defense to me is huge," Noone said. "We lost a whole defensive group of kids. All those kids that (started this year) were subs last year, except for Meghan Morris."

Noone's preseason comment to The Eagle-Tribune, "We thought this would be a low year but in the scrimmages we've been pleasantly surprised."

That comment wasn't negative, obviously, but it didn't sound like a remark from a coach confident her team could win a state title. 

Yet, Andover did exceeded expectations this year and won the Division 1 state championship with a 3-1 victory over Algonquin in the title game yesterday.

The Andover fans began the countdown with 10 seconds remaining. And once the final second ticked off the clock, Andover bench players sprinted over to their goalie and hugged and celebrated their first state championship in program history and a remarkable 24-0-0 season. 

For years the knock against Andover field hockey was that it dominated the weak Merrimack Valley Conference but then struggled out of the league. 

That perception is over after yesterday — and after a very impressive postseason run in which the Golden Warriors knocked off schools, including Walpole and Acton-Boxboro. 

"It's hard to keep hearing that," Noone said about her team dominating the MVC, then struggling against everyone else. "You hear it over and over again. Any meeting I go to for senior all-stars, they will always say, 'Well, in the end, it's going to be this league or it's going to that league because your league isn't (good enough).' And it's frustrating. And it made it even harder for these kids to find a way. We have to practice harder sometimes at practice or find harder scrimmages. ... If you look back we just beat Walpole. We beat Acton-Boxboro. We can't be bad."

So what ultimately won it for Andover this year? 

"I think we have really unselfish kids," Noone said. "I think that they are so balanced that if (Jaclyn Torres) doesn't have a good game, which never happens, then Kate Farnham steps in or Anne Farnham or Laura Cahill. There's just somebody to replace somebody at all times. It's the most balanced group of kids I've ever had." 

Anne Farnham scored twice and added an assist yesterday. She scored the game-winner, which at the time made it 2-1, with 8:50 remaining in the first half. She also scored the third goal to make it 3-1 with 59 seconds left in the contest. 

"This is just amazing," Anne Farnham said. "We made history. We worked so hard and accomplished so much, and it's just a great feeling. We just went through every game, worked our hardest and surprised ourselves, I think. It was just a surprise — how far we've come."  

Laura Dimitruk scored Andover's first goal, which made it 1-0 early in the first half. 

"It was a little unexpected because we lost a lot of girls last year," Dimitruk said. "It was a big year for us and it was really fun. ... We came off a lot of big wins in the early playoffs and just coming into today, we were like, "We can do this. We've got this.' All the girls were into it. They all believed in it. So it made it easier. We just put everything out there that we had and we did it." 

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