UTICA, N.Y. — Twenty-six minutes into the U.S. Women’s Box National Team’s game against the Haudenosaunee on Saturday night, the U.S. had managed only one goal and trailed 4-1.
The U.S. was dominating on the floor, but couldn’t get the ball past Haudenosaunee goalie Chelsea Doolittle. It magnified every defensive possession, as the U.S. could ill afford to dig a deeper hole.
Goalie Ingrid Boyum was the last line of defense. She regrouped after giving up an early goal she’d like to have back.
“I let in a soft goal, like a really soft goal,” Boyum said. “It was really slow, right in between my legs. I was like, ‘Oh man, that can’t happen again.’”
A couple breakaway goals from Ally Kennedy cut the Haudenosaunee lead to 4-3 at halftime, but the U.S. still struggled to score into the third quarter. Time and again, Boyum turned away shots from the Haudenosaunee before the offense finally got going and began to pull away late in the third quarter.
Boyum was lights out the rest of the way, finishing the night with 28 saves while allowing just four goals in an 11-4 victory that was considerably more nerve-wracking than the final score would indicate.
All goalies face pressure. Few are as equipped to handle it as Boyum.
Boyum graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy in 2018 and served five years as an officer in the Navy. She was stationed in various places, including a planned six-month deployment on the USS Harry S. Truman, a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, that turned into 10 months.
Now the head girls’ lacrosse coach and an admissions associate at Episcopal High School in Virginia, Boyum gave a speech to the students at the school last November as part of a Veterans Day observance, including a powerful story of a night from early 2022 aboard the warship:
One night I was on duty, on a dark, windowless watch floor full of screens. Around 3 a.m., one of my sailors turned around and asked me to look at her monitor, which was flashing red. That night, my team tracked the onset of the Russian invasion into Ukraine. Our strike group was operating in the Mediterranean Sea in close proximity to Russian warships and submarines.
A lot of things were riding on our ability to handle the pressure in that situation. On my ability to lead my team.
When I signed up to join the Navy at 17, I couldn’t have imagined it would be my voice coming across the communications network announcing the reality of the situation to other U.S. Navy ships in the region and briefing senior officers who I’d just woken up about how our world changed so suddenly. There was no way to comprehend the devastation that would follow and still continues today, or all the lives that would be changed.
But for me, once again, I had a job to do.
Yes, Boyum is trained to handle pressure, and it’s something she carries over to the lacrosse field.
“I try to stay right in the middle,” Boyum said. “Not to get too high or too low, but just remember this is what I have to do, this is my job and I’m trained to do it. No matter what the scoreboard is or how much time or what the pressure of the situation is, I knew that I would be prepared in that moment.”