By Ken Lechtanski, The Patriot Ledger

BRAINTREE, Mass. -- Taylor Clancy’s lacrosse career began as a personal favor to a friend back when she was a freshman at Braintree High School.

“She said, ‘Will you try out with me?’” Clancy recalled, “and I was like, ‘I don’t want to play softball anymore so I guess I’ll try it.’ I tried out for the team and just really liked it.”

Eight years and eight coaches later, Clancy is glad that she made the spring switch – and so is the Bridgewater State University women’s lacrosse team.

With Clancy leading the way this season as one of their senior captains, the Bears went 14-6 and won both the Massachusetts State Collegiate Athletic Conference regular-season and tournament titles for the second year in a row to reach the NCAA tournament for a fifth consecutive season.

Clancy, who joined the Bears as a freshman, finished her stellar four-year career as the MASCAC Player of the Year this season en route to being named a first-team selection to the Eastern College Athletic Conference Division 3 New England Women’s Lacrosse All-Star Team.

“I couldn’t have asked for a better end to my career,” said the recent Bridgewater State graduate. “I couldn’t have asked for a better team or a better coach, or a better result.”

The Bears’ dangerous midfielder amassed a career-high 71 goals and 27 assists this season in leading the MASCAC in scoring, points, ground balls (75) and caused turnovers (46). She tied for 11th in the country in Division 3 in goals and was 20th in scoring.

Back in high school, Clancy never imagined she would end up being a college lacrosse all-star. A multi-sport athlete who also was a member of the Wamps’ cross country, basketball and cheerleading squads, Clancy took up lacrosse mainly because she wanted to round out her year playing something.

She wound up being bitten by the lacrosse bug, playing for four coaches in her four seasons at Braintree. By the time she was a senior, Clancy was considering a cross country scholarship offer to attend Merrimack College, but couldn’t shake her desire to keep playing lacrosse at the next level.

So, she so paid an overnight recruiting visit to Bridgewater State and “ended up loving the school.”

“When I met everyone, they seemed like a big family,” she said. “Everyone knew everyone. I could see myself fitting in with the team and with the school.”

As a freshman, Taylor saw limited playing time under former BSU coach Erika Smith in an experienced lineup that included eight senior starters. After they graduated, Clancy knew it was her time to start sharing the reins her sophomore season.

“We still had a strong team, but losing eight leaders was really big so I figured I would try to step up and play my best because we had to fill some big holes.”

Clancy immediately began contributing for the Bears in what became their annual march to the NCAA tournament and an annual changing of the guard at the coaching level. By the time she headed into her senior season, Clancy was preparing to play for her fourth coach (Smith twice) with the Bears, Holly Drown.

“I literally had eight coaches in eight years,” Clancy said.

Despite the steady coaching changes, the Bears managed to continue to win with Clancy still around in the midfield.

“It’s hard, but our program is so strong that any coach that we got, we bought in to what they were going to bring to the team,” she said. “We lucked out with coaches every year, they were great. It’s too bad they couldn’t stick around.”

Drown took Clancy aside before this season to let her star midfielder know that she was relying on Clancy to shoulder the load for a young team that had only three seniors.

“She told me at the beginning of the season that she wanted me to lead the midfield and I was like, ‘absolutely, I’m ready for it,’” Clancy said. “She had a lot of trust and faith in me so that was really good to know from the start, that she trusted us right from the beginning.”

Clancy was also named a senior captain for this season, a role that she was already familiar with and has embraced throughout her athletic career, having been a high school captain in cross country and lacrosse as well as a cross country captain at Bridgewater State for two seasons and a mid-distance captain in indoor track for the Bears.

“I’ve always seen myself as a leader, whether I’ve been named a captain or not named a captain,” Clancy said. “It’s just who I am.”

Clancy took as much pride in being a captain for the Bears as she did being their leading scorer.

“In any circumstance, you have to know your team and you need to know the individual players,” Clancy explained. “If your team is having an off day, you have to be the person who can pull them all together and say, ‘what’s going on? We’ve really got to come together and pick it up,’ or be the person who makes that last-minute decision in a game that really might make a difference. Just be ready to step up and take matters into your own hands.”

In her four seasons for the Bears, Clancy collected 180 goals and 63 assists for 243 points In 79 games. Along the way, the Bears went 60-19 and were undefeated in 35 games against conference opponents.

‘‘She is just unbelievable,’’ Drown said. ‘‘she is one of the best kids I've ever coached. Any time we wanted to get things done, we went to Taylor.’’

Clancy finished as the program’s all-time leader in ground balls (268) and second in draws (232), ranking sixth all-time in scoring, seventh in goals and eighth in assists.

“I had no idea of the kind of success that was going to occur in my four years in college,” she said.

While Clancy has left her lacrosse legacy with the Bears, she isn’t ready to leave lacrosse behind on a personal level. Clancy is coaching a lacrosse club team in Boston this summer and is looking to play in a summer league as well.

“I definitely want to keep it in my life,” she said. “I’ve been an athlete all of my life. I can’t stop now.”