Hannah Trottier-Braun (Andree Kehn/Sun Journal)

Hannah Trottier-Braun had just scored the game-winning goal, in double overtime, to give St. Dom’s its first state field hockey championship.

Before she celebrated all of that, though, Trottier-Braun retrieved the ball from the back of the cage.

Doing that became a habit for the forward in her senior season. It was the 59th time she scored during the Saints’ 18-0 run to the Class C state championship, meaning that she averaged more than three goals per game.

She broke the state’s single-season scoring record in early October. But that goal against Winthrop in the state title game was the biggest of all.

“It’s still so surreal,” Trottier-Braun said almost a month later.

Her goal was the perfect ending to St. Dom’s perfect season, and of all the high-scoring Saints (the team scored 143 goals this season) Trottier-Braun was the perfect one to score it. She finishes her high school career with 111 goals. More than half of which came in 2017.

“Amazing goal scorer,” St. Dom’s co-coach Brian Kay said. “And winning it in the state championship game is an incredible season.”

How does one player have such a knack for sending balls into the back of the cage?

Part of it is spacing, Trottier-Braun said. There’s also some determination involved.

“I don’t give up. When it gets in the circle, I want to get a goal,” Trottier-Braun said. “Not only me, but one of my teammates.”

Trottier-Braun and Kay said it also helps to be surrounded by teammates who are themselves adept at scoring and setting up goals.

To Trottier-Braun, 18 is greater than 59 — what she accomplished with those teammates supersedes all the goals she scored.

“I really wanted to win states,” she said. “That meant more than all the individual stuff.”

She’s especially proud of the Saints’ seniors, who started their high school careers with an 2-10 record. But they go back even farther than that.

“We all played together for really long time,” Trottier-Braun said.

Trottier-Braun has has been playing field hockey, and scoring goals, since she was 5 years old. Believe it or not, there have been a few occasions when she has tried playing defense.

“I liked it, but my friend Tori (Chase) is much better at handling that pressure,” she said.

“I liked it, but I don’t think I can give up scoring goals. I really like scoring goals.”

Trottier-Braun hasn’t yet decided if she will continue her field hockey career in college or devote all of her focus to her biology pre-med classes (she wants to be a doctor). She had decided to not play, but since the season ended she has started to rethink her plans.

Hannah Trottier-Braun (Andree Kehn/Sun Journal)