How ECS won second straight TSSAA girls lacrosse state championship
Emily Hill scored the winning goal 44 seconds into overtime for Evangelic Christian School in a 12-11 win over University School of Nashville.
Evangelical Christian School lacrosse defended its TSSAA Division II-A girls state championship by rallying to beat University School of Nashville 12-11 in overtime on May 16 at Ravenwood. ECS has won the TSSAA's first two DII-A championships. The 2025 championship came in the first year the high school association had sanctioned the sport.
ECS defeated USN 21-8 in 2025. "We felt a lot of pressure because this was the same team, same time last year we had to beat," said sophomore Emily Hill, who scored the winning goal 44 seconds into overtime. "We knew they had it out for us, but we knew that we could do it again because we worked so hard for this.
" Evangelical Christian (10-4) trailed 8-5 at the half before outscoring USN (10-8) 4-0 in the third quarter to take a 9-8 lead. USN went back up 10-8 in the topsy-turvy game before ECS scored two goals, the second by Hill, which made it 10-10. USN's Elizabeth Crane scored with 1:49 left in regulation to tie the score at 11-11 and send the game into overtime.
ECS earned the first possession in overtime, but the Eagles came out a bit overzealous on offense. They needed to settle down, and it was Hill, an underclassman, who did that before scoring the winning sudden-death goal. More: How Ensworth won TSSAA girls lacrosse state title, ending Harpeth Hall's dominance "With the way this game had gone we felt the first team to get possession in overtime would win, so that was our main objective, just get the ball off the draw, try to be smart on offense, don't take a charge, don't force anything," ECS coach Meritaylor Pickle said.