Jayhawk senior played for championship lacrosse team

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OGDEN — Ally MacAulay, who graduated from St. Joseph Catholic High School last month, was on the state championship lacrosse team from Farmington High School.

SJCHS does not have a lacrosse team, but MacAulay played on the club teams Park City Express and Links until she found a spot as a midfielder on the Farmington HS team.

In this year’s 6A state lacrosse final, a last-minute assist by MacAulay led to Kate Carter scoring the tie-breaking and winning game point, resulting in the first state title for the Farmington Phoenix. The Phoenix dominated at the state tournament, beating American Fork, Bingham and Riverton before narrowly taking the title from Mountain Ridge 10-9 on May 22 at Zions Bank Stadium.

In the championship game, MacAulay scored two goals and three assists. 

“I feel so ecstatic about [the state title],” she said. “It’s just such a satisfying win for us. I’ve been playing with Farmington since my sophomore year now, and so every year we’ve been like, ‘We’re taking state; this is the year,’ and it’s just never happened. And I think something just clicked this year, and everyone played their part, and it was an amazing win. It was a great game.”

Before moving to Utah, MacAulay played lacrosse in Virginia, New Jersey and New Mexico, where her Air Force parents Chris and Janell MacAulay were stationed before their retirement. Chris MacAulay, who was the Farmington team’s head coach, has a solid background in lacrosse, having played in high school, college and for the German national team.

“I played in the 2002 world championships in Australia for the German national team because I was stationed over there at the time, and then just got into coaching after that, when my kids started playing,” he said.

His daughter has “a high lacrosse IQ, which translates into she’s primarily an offensive player, and she’s really good at set creating her own shots,” but in doing so, she often gets double-teamed, he said. “So, she’s become a really good assist person in terms of finding her open teammates to benefit the team as a whole.”

MacAulay finished out her high school career with 300 points.

“I loved my experience [on the Farmington team], and I’m really glad that my dad was head coach, because that also was just such a fun experience having my dad there, and I think he really enjoyed it as well,” MacAulay said. “But I also knew a couple of the girls from club lacrosse, so one of the reasons why I joined Farmington was we all wanted to end up playing together, and they were in need of a coach, so it worked out. I really enjoyed my time, and I made such amazing friends.”

In addition to her success at the high school level, last year MacAulay qualified for the Utah national team, and she has committed to play lacrosse at the University of San Diego, where she hopes to complete a double major in marketing and real estate. 

After studying at USD, MacAulay  would like to pursue graduate work in Scotland or England. Once she fulfills residency requirements there, she would like to try out for the Scottish National Lacrosse Team and possibly play in the Olympics someday, she said.