LYNN — The St. Mary’s girls lacrosse team fought a mid-game rally from Matignon and scored the final four goals of the game in a 10-5 Catholic Central League win at Manning Field Friday night. The Spartans were undermanned in the win, as key players Codi Butt and Riley Lynch were out with injuries.
“I think everybody really pulled together today to get this win,” said St. Mary’s coach K.C. Butt. “We have a number of different goal scorers, which is always good to see. We had times where we let Matignon get back into it, but when it mattered we buckled down and put the game away.”
Mady Hentosh had a big night for the Spartans, leading the way with four goals. Megan Parthum was right behind with three goals, while Jenna Chaplain, Makayla McGrath and Sherly Feliz each had one goal. For Feliz and Chaplain, it was the first career goal for each.
“It was pretty exciting to have two of our players get their first career varsity goals in the same game,” said Butt. “Jenna has only been playing lacrosse for a few weeks so it’s great for her, and Sherly has been with me for four years now playing defense, so she doesn’t get many opportunities on offense. So it was great to see them both get one today.”
On the defensive end, Butt praised the efforts of Feliz, Kelsey Sullivan, Shelly Callahan, Nicole Callahan and Kiara Lonigro. Goalie Lauren Vaccaro also made some key saves in net.
“The whole defensive side played so well for us tonight,” said Butt. “We had some trouble with ground balls tonight, but those are things we can work on. When we needed to make the plays, we were able to.”
It took just over 10 minutes of game time before the first goal was scored, as both teams were getting a feel for each other in the early going. The Spartans struck first on a goal from Parthum after she was awarded a corner, taking a 1-0 lead. But less than a minute later the Warriors were given a corner of their own, and they capitalized with a goal from Carolyn Mahoney to tie it at 1-1. Hentosh quickly responded with her first goal of the game to retake the lead for St. Mary’s, but then there was a six-minute stretch where neither team could score. That stretch was broken by Hentosh, whose goal with 6:43 remaining made it 3-1 St. Mary’s. McGrath and Chaplain added one goal apiece in a span of just 35 seconds, quickly ballooning the Spartans’ lead to 5-1 with six minutes to go in the half. Matignon slowed the bleeding a bit as the half wound down, scoring two goals in the final five minutes to cut it to 5-3 St. Mary’s at the half.
St. Mary’s also scored the first goal of the second half, as Hentosh notched her hat trick with just over 20 minutes left. But then Matignon scored two straight goals in quick succession to cut it to 6-5 and put the pressure back on the Spartans.
But St. Mary’s didn’t fold under that pressure and instead closed the game with a four-goal run (two from Parthum, one from Hentosh and one from Feliz) to keep the Warriors at bay and walk away with the win.
The Spartans (2-0) have the weekend off before hosting Arlington Catholic Monday (7).