By all accounts, when the basketball postseason started, no one would have picked underdog Ursuline Academy to win the MIAA Division 4 state championship, but that’s how it went down that night on the infamous parquet floor of the Fleet Center in Boston. On March 15, 2005, the Ursuline Bears pulled off one of the region’s better Cinderella stories and surprised Whittier Tech of Haverhill with a 53–40 win, capturing the coveted Bay State trophy. Led by Ursuline senior captain Meghan Lawrie, the win was Ursuline’s first state championship in any sport. “I can barely even put this into words,” said Lawrie. “As a basketball player you always dream of finishing like this, but no one expected little ol’ Ursuline to be the team to come out and do this. This is so exciting.”
The state championship game wasn’t without its share of tense moments. The bigger Whitter Tech squad outmuscled the fleet-footed Bears for much of the game and took a 35–31 lead midway through the second half. But the postseason tournament experience of being a small independent school frequently competing against larger schools gave the Bears the patience they needed to pick up the tempo and wear out the Whittier players to take the win. Afterward, the players celebrated with nearly the entire Ursuline community. “It was really something else,” said coach John DePasquale. “Ursuline is known for its strong academics, and for good reason. But the school proved they could get excited about sports, too. Once we won the South Sectional title, it really became something the whole school got swept up in. Nearly the entire school is here,” he said. “This is the type of thing that everyone involved in is going to remember for a lifetime.”
For their exceptional work in the truest form of a team effort, we are proud to welcome the 2005 State Championship Basketball Team into the Athletic Hall of Fame. Congratulations to team members Betsy Brennan ’06, Caitlin Burchill ’08, Kathleen Porter Garro ’07, Molly Griffiths ’07, Jaclyn Hourihan ’06, Meghan Lawrie Jaegar ’05, Elizabeth Montgomery Jensen ’05, Margaret Keaveny ’05, Rebecca Aha Lay ’07, Juli McDonald ’06, Katherine Nickley ’05, Katie O’Malley ’07, Nicole Norton Vermillion ’05, head coach John DePasquale, assistant coach Lynne Smith, and assistant coach Mike Trotta!