‘Class of leaders’ call it a career for Bloomfield Hills lacrosse

BLOOMFIELD HILLS — Their first season on varsity ended in a state tournament run, so it was only right to have the final curtain call for the Bloomfield Hills girls lacrosse seniors be yet another memorable journey in the Michigan High School Athletic Association Division 1 state tournament.

Seniors Abigayle Agbay, Aubrey Agbay, Ella Lucia and Sydney Butler started their high school careers on varsity as young freshmen hoping to make an impact throughout the season, and seniors Molly Herrick, Eleen Vaupel and Cassidy Brazelton would soon join their Class of 2024 teammates.

The sensational seven would go on to win their first regional championship in the black and purple and tally another regional title to their name in 2022, and another one, and finally earn their fourth-straight championship as seniors.

Unfortunately for Bloomfield Hills, Brighton was always waiting in the wings at the state semifinals game, ready to put an end to Bloomfield Hills’ season.

At this point the team was past the feeling of a Groundhog Day as both teams matched up for the fourth-straight time June 5 at Fenton High School, but this loss (14-10 in favor of Brighton) felt like it carried a much more gut-wrenching blow than years prior.

“It was a tough one at the end of the game, emotionally, because they’re a great group,” Bloomfield Hills head coach Christina Arens said. “Four of them made varsity straight on as freshmen, and the other three were pulled up for playoffs. All seven of them are great kids, great players, and have really impacted this team in terms of the culture, the positivity, and just the overall hard work and dedication to Bloomfield Hills lacrosse the past four years.”

There was a lot that could be said about the group just from an on-the-field point of view, starting with Butler, who plans to attend Cornell University for academics and potentially play club. Butler was a team captain who took the goalie position as a freshman and earned first team all-State honors before eventually becoming a four-time all-State selection.

Butler wasn’t the only one with a handful of all-State selections as Lucia (3x all-State honoree) and the Agbay sisters each earned three all-State selections of their own.

Lucia, who led the team in goals (119) and assists (43) this season and has been a staple of the Black Hawks’ attack, is a generational type of player in the lacrosse high school scene, but she’s just as dominant on the ice.

A scoring machine at the center position for the Little Caesars AAA hockey organization, Lucia, who was named a high school All-American by USA Lacrosse, is currently committed to Harvard University for girls hockey.

“She’s one of those players that, regardless of how talented of a kid I have come into the program in the future, she is a once-in-a-lifetime player to coach, because, yeah, she’s super talented, but her biggest plus side to her is honestly how hard of a worker she is,” Arens said. “She’s confident, but she’s humble. She’s not one that walks around with an ego. Do I probably have a slight bit of bias with her being my player? Yes, but I’ve coached players that are very talented and that have that edge and that ego because they know they’re good. That’s not her. She makes a mistake, and I bring her over to talk to her, and I can see the tears in her eyes. She’s not doing it for herself. She’s doing it for the team.”

Statistics are one-dimensional in terms of measuring leadership and what a player brings to the table. What really matters is how they get their teammates involved and how they elevate the players around them, and this senior class prided itself on making sure everyone succeeded.

For sophomore Solei Ewing, who earned her first all-State selection this year, it was the comfortability and confidence the upperclassmen gave her as a young player. Ewing, a southpaw, said her first season was a ton of nerves and a lack of confidence in her abilities, but 25 goals, an all-State nod and a core of leadership around her helped her grow into the player she is today.

“They’re like the mothers on the team,” Ewing said. “They were really there, and if everyone on the team was down and in our heads they would be like, ‘Come on guys, we got this. Let’s get out of our heads.’ Even when there were times where not everyone scored on the team or no one on the team made a goal yet beside the upperclassmen, they would give that assist to the underclassmen to give them that goal. That’s what really made them a leader.”

Ewing is slated to be a team captain next year alongside junior Anna Rubel and junior Alia Somero, where it will be their turn to embody the Bloomfield Hills culture and carry on what classes before them have built, but with their own twist on it.

“She’s (Anna) a quieter person, but when she’s comfortable, and she knows she’s confident in her spot. She becomes very vocal and has a really strong lacrosse IQ, which I think I brought to our team,” Butler said. “She’ll be a great vocal leader along with Solei, who will be a great vocal leader. Alia will do great things too, but I think she takes over Ella’s role of more leading by example. She’s an amazing player and she’s super fast. I think that’s where she’ll thrive.”

The captain trio will have a strong supporting cast around them with junior Samantha Ayiar, sophomore Ella Griffin, freshman Molly Rubel, freshman Olivia Brodsky, sophomore Brooke Sanders, junior Paige Gardner, and a slew of other talented Black Hawks players.

There’s an expectation given the past four years ending with a regional title, but Bloomfield Hills has all the talent in the world to carry on the tradition of winning.

“I think this senior class was probably the most influential in Bloomfield history just because all of our seniors were such strong players and we were all over the field,” Butler said. “Not only that, we all were truly friends on and off the field. I think our chemistry could be seen while playing because it was so strong.”

“Bloomfield Hills lacrosse was so amazing all four years,” Lucia said. “Yeah, we did lose to Brighton all four years in the state semis, but we did win our region every year, which is something no lacrosse team has ever done at Bloomfield. It’s crazy that it’s done now. I’m excited to watch them in the future and come back for games.”