LYNN — The St. Mary’s girls lacrosse team had a successful season in 2017 by many standards, winning 13 games and earning the No. 9 seed in the Division 2 North tournament. But the Spartans run ended in the first round with a 7-3 loss to Lynnfield, and a number of key contributors left the Spartans via graduation.
“It’ll be tough replacing the players we lost, because we lost some important ones,” said head coach KC Butt, now in her third year at the helm of the Spartans. “Obviously losing our goalie is hard, plus a couple of key defensive players and some real leaders. We’re going to need some girls to step into those roles as we get this new year started.”
At goalie St. Mary’s will have to replace Brittany McPherson, one of the better goalkeepers in the area over the past couple of years. In addition to her prowess between the pipes, McPherson was also a vocal leader on the team.
“She was really a great keeper for us and a huge leader,” Butt said of McPherson. “It’s a stressful thing when you have to replace someone like that, but we’ve got a couple of quality players to hopefully fill those shoes.”
One of those two players, interestingly enough, is the goalkeeper that knocked the Spartans out of the Division 2 tournament last May. Junior Lauren Vaccaro, who has spent the last two seasons in net (both on the field and on the ice) for the Lynnfield Pioneers, has transferred to St. Mary’s for her junior season and will compete for the starting job. The other competitor for the starting gig will be sophomore Courtney Quinn, who has been impressive in her limited action with the Spartans.
“We haven’t made the decision yet, because both girls are very talented and bring a lot to the table,” Butt said of the two goalies. “It’s going to be a great competition to see who comes out on top, and at the end of the day we’ll still have two great goalies on the roster.”
On the field, the Spartans have some key players returning. Leading the way on offense will be the scoring duo of junior midfielders Codi Butt and Mady Hentosh, who have led the team in scoring for the past couple of years and have also been named captains for 2018. The other two captains will be senior defenders Abby Frary and Mackenzie Spates, while Kelsey Sullivan, Riley Lynch and Zoe Solomons will also be key contributors this season. The rest of the roster will be filled with up to 15 brand-new players to the program.
“It’ll be interesting, because after those veteran players we have a lot of girls who have never even played lacrosse before,” Butt said. “And while that might be a little tough, it’s also great for our program going forward. We even have some seventh graders who have the talent to potentially end up getting varsity time this year.”
Like many teams, the Spartans have had some trouble getting outside on the field due to all the snow. But thankfully, they made it out onto the field for the first time on Tuesday afternoon, giving them a full week to prepare for the season opener next Tuesday.
“With a young team like this, it’s really tough to teach the game when you’re not outside and you don’t have the lines on the field to work with,” Butt said. “But we finally got out there (Tuesday), which gives us some time to really prepare for the season. And we’ll need to, because we open up with some really tough games right off the bat.”
St. Mary’s opens up the season April 3 with a non-conference game against Pentucket.
