SWAMPSCOTT — The Marblehead girls lacrosse team ended the season better than they could’ve hoped, coming from behind in the final minutes to top rival Swampscott 11-10 on the road Tuesday.
The Big Blue led almost wire-to-wire but the Magicians closed out the final 3:30 minutes with six straight goals — capped off by Gigi Lombardi’s game winner in the final seconds — to steal the win and finish the year at 8-4.
“This game really shows the grit and determination of our girls,” Marblehead coach Annie Madden said. “All season we’ve been battling, trying to overcome all these obstacles. We play for games like this. Going into the tournament, this is exactly what we needed. We overcame everything.”
Maddie Erskine led the way on the scoresheet with four goals and four assists. Molly Forbes and Lombardi each had two goals and an assist. Hadley Wales had a goal and two assists while Sydney Langton and Abigail Kalinowski each had a goal. Fehr Gillett had an assist.
But the real difference for Marblehead came in the center of the field from Erskine, Forbes and Wales. The trio wouldn’t be denied on a string of faceoffs in the final stretch of the game to help make the comeback possible.
“It comes down to composure and lacrosse IQ,” Madden said. “When you have players out there who are determined and willing to go to battle for each other, for the coaches, for their teammates, that’s what it’s all about. These are the high school games that you just hope and pray the girls get a chance to play in.”
Swampscott was on top of its defensive game for a huge stretch of time before Marblehead took over. Harper Clopton scored four goals while Reese Robertson had three. Scarlett Ciciotti, Elizabeth Green and Coco Clopton each had a goal.
“This was a long-awaited game, a big game for us against our rivals,” Swampscott coach Jillian Robinson said. “They have a strong midfield and it just came down to those 50-50 balls and the draws. They were coming up with them and scored those quick goals in the last three minutes. It’s a tough game.
“Annie Madden is a great coach,” Robinson said. “They broke down our zone in the beginning so we went to man. Our girls did great at transitioning to man. That’s a good team. I’m happy with our team. That’s a good game to go into the tournament.”
Swampscott jumped out to a 4-2 lead and a pair of goals from Harper Clopton and Ciciotti helped bump it up to 6-2 midway through the second quarter.
Marblehead got a much-needed boost by goals from Wales and Erskine in the final 20 seconds of the first half to cut the lead to 6-4 before the break.
Both teams traded goals in the third to keep the Swampscott lead at two heading into the fourth. Coco Clopton scored early in the fourth and Harper Clopton slipped another in to give the Big Blue a 10-6 lead in the final minutes.
But Erskine scored a pair of goals and assisted on another to cut the lead to just one in the blink of an eye. And the senior scooped up a key ground ball on the next faceoff, which led to Forbes’ game-tying goal with 1:52 to play.
Sydney Langton won the next key faceoff and Lombardi followed with her eventual game winner with 40 seconds to play. Erskine’s last faceoff win of the day helped close things.
Both teams end the regular season and will await tournament seeding.
