St. Mary’s girls hoop team has strong Lynn roots

LYNN – The City of Lynn has a strong presence on the St. Mary’s girls basketball team this season.Ten of the 16 players on the Lady Spartans are Lynners, including senior Tori Faieta, the school’s all-time leading scorer and rebounder.”It’s one of our biggest Lynn contingents we’ve had in my six years,” said head coach Jeff Newhall, who is himself a Lynner and whose team plays Lee on Saturday for the Division 4 state title. “I’d say we’re usually around one-half (Lynners), probably ? a little bit more than one-half.”Asked what caused the upsurge this season, he said, “We have a strong program with our junior high, freshman and JV teams. I guess it’s just the way (players are) moving up in the program.”Of our 16 best players, 10 are from Lynn.”The list includes some of the top players on the team, including three of the four captains in Faieta, Kirsten Ferrari and Cassi Amenta. (The fourth, Molly Carey, is from Swampscott and has drawn praise from Newhall for coming back from an ACL injury.) With one game left in her career, Amenta has a chance to reach the 900-career-point milestone – in a school where only two players have ever reached 1,000.”(Amenta’s) had a great postseason,” Newhall said, citing her four key free throws in the last 20 seconds of a win over Coyle-Cassidy in the state semifinals. Meanwhile, the coach said, “Kirsten Ferrari’s done a tremendous job at both ends of the floor leading the offense and defense as a point guard.”Rounding out the list of Lynners are Sharell Sanders, Brianna Rudolph, Emily Doyle, Melissa Kennedy, Rachel Faieta, Ann-Marie Idusuyi and Molly Durgin.”Our roster is two-thirds from Lynn, and it says a lot about girls basketball in the city,” Newhall said. “Tech showed great improvement and Classical and English were in the state tournament. It speaks volumes about the talent in girls basketball in the city that there are four teams competing at a good high school level and they are able to do that with success.”On the boys side there is one team in each division (English in 1, Classical in 2, Tech in 3, St. Mary’s in 4) that on any given year can be considered for the favorite in the division. The boys have long-established programs in the city and the girls, in the last 10 years, have really come on.”Before this season, the St. Mary’s girls highlights included winning the Catholic Suburban League title in 1987; seeing Robyn Mazin ’95 score her 1,000th career point; and going all the way to a state championship in 2002.”One thing about the people of the City of Lynn, they’re very, very supportive of all the Lynn schools – three public and one parochial,” Newhall said. “On a run like we’re making, at the Tsongas Center and Boston Garden, people not attached to St. Mary’s are cheering you on because we’re representing the City of Lynn as a high school. Not all cities and towns get that.”