CHELMSFORD — The No. 4 Marblehead girls lacrosse team came into Friday’s Division 1 North final looking to earn a sectional crown.
The No. 2 Chelmsford Lions had other ideas, and they knocked off Marblehead 16-9 Friday afternoon on their home field to clinch a spot in the state semifinal.
Assistant coach Shannon Beaton, who has a fantastic backstory that got her on the Marblehead sidelines, said that Chelmsford was a strong team and it was able to contain the high-flying, offensively-skilled Magicians.
“Chelmsford’s an amazing, amazing team, well-coached, strong team,” Beaton said. “Our girls have a lot to be proud of. It’s a huge testament to this group of seniors. They are so talented, and to get our team, this team this far, just says a lot about the dedicated girls we have playing on our team.
“Our seniors have been incredible leaders this season,” Beaton said. “I think that a huge amount of our team’s success is because of our seniors, and due in large part to their talent and their ability to motivate the rest of the girls to play for one team, for Marblehead, for each other.”
Senior Lydia Bongiorno led the Marblehead offense in her final high school lacrosse game with four goals scored. Maddie Erskine and Carter Murray each scored two goals. Grace Arthur rounded out Marblehead’s offense with one goal.
The backstory to how Shannon Beaton got on the Marblehead sidelines all starts with Pentucket lacrosse. Annie Madden played for Beaton’s mom on the Sachems, and babysat Shannon when she wasn’t playing for Pentucket.
With Madden set to have her first baby this spring she called on Beaton to get out and get on the sidelines as one of her assistants along with Grace Arthur’s mom, Elena. The combination worked fine, and Marblehead finished the year with a 16-6 record and three tournament wins.
Beaton said that the future is bright for Marblehead, with plenty of junior varsity players eager to prove themselves on the varsity team next spring. Goalie Elizabeth Driscoll is a sophomore, so the team’s starting goalie position is looked up for two more years.
“We competed very hard against Chelmsford,” Beaton said. “They are a very strong, skilled team. We wish them the best as they advance. We’ll use what we learned from this game to become a better team in the future. I think this team realized we could do something special is in the North Andover game. Even though we lost, we showed we could compete with some elite teams and we gained a lot of confidence in that game and used it to keep rolling in the tournament. Unfortunately for our team, we ran into and an excellent Chelmsford team.”
Chelmsford will play Central/West sectional champion Longmeadow Monday (5) at Babson College in the state semifinal.
