LYNN — The St. Mary’s girls lacrosse team exerted all of its effort playing against the Pentucket Sachems but the Spartans were defeated, 11-3, in their season opener at a rainy Manning Field on Tuesday evening.
Junior midfielder Codi Butt led the way for the Spartans, scoring all three of St. Mary’s goals.
Despite the loss, Spartans coach K.C. Butt liked the resiliency she saw in her team from start to finish.
“I have amazing leaders both on and off the field,” Butt said. “This is one of the strongest bonding years I’ve had.”
Pentucket’s Clare Dore scored the first goal of the evening, laying the foundation for the Sachems strong command of the ball for the rest of the game. The Sachems offense hit the Spartans with force until Codi Butt seized her opportunity to take a shot at the Sachem’s goalie, scoring St. Mary’s first goal to make it a 3-1 game with 12:50 to play in the opening half.
The first half saw the Sachems dominating the battle of possession. Maddie Conover scored with 8:04 remaining in the half, bringing the lead up to 5-1. Codi Butt countered the offensive blows made by the Sachems by scoring the second goal with 5:20 on the clock.
Despite heavy offensive blows, the Spartans assessed their options and took shots when they had the opportunity.
“We focused so much on defense because we didn’t really have a defense,” said Butt. “We put new kids in there but they did an amazing job, each one of them.”
Sachem Ann Wener scored their sixth goal from 10 yards out at the end of the first half, giving Pentucket a 6-2 lead at halftime.
“Our goalkeeping was amazing,” said Butt. “Lauren Vaccaro kept the game more feasible.”
The second half was more of the same. Petucket’s Brooke Yemma decreased the odds of a comeback by scoring the seventh goal. Codi Butt challenged the Sachems’ defense with another score, making it a 9-2 deficit.
“What I was psyched about at the end of the game was we were losing and they were still listening to us and working on what we were asking them to work on and getting better,” said Butt.
The Spartans scored their third and final goal with Codi Butt going into the line of fire once again to shake up the Sachems defense. The Sachems scored two more goals before the game ended to seal their 11-3 win.
“We started to play defense from start to finish,” said Butt. “Our attack has to play defense whenever there’s a turnover, even in the offensive field, and they started to do that. We also need to move the ball and attack, and get people open.”
Butt and the Spartans won’t dwell on their season-opening loss. Instead, they’ll take the positives from Tuesday’s game and hope to build on them.
“There’s some good connections,” said Butt. “Codi Butt and Mady Hentosh made amazing connections in the midfield and we won some draws today. I like that I saw everybody stand up. I’m happy with everybody, I’m happy with what I saw.”
St. Mary’s (0-1) aims to bounce back with a win this afternoon (4) when the Spartans visit Catholic Central League opponent Archbishop Williams.
