March 3, 2010
Senior moment in Mass.
Last year's junior-led teams are this year's powerhouses
by Susan N. Biddle/
The untold story of the 2009 high school lacrosse season in Massachusetts was that the top teams — both for boys and girls — were led mostly by their juniors. That means the story of the 2010 season will be that last year’s top teams run away to repeats.
The toughest road to a repeat may be the girls Division I battle, where two-time defending state champion Westwood features a trio of Northwestern-bound seniors in All-American midfielders Misha Beatty and Kelly Rich, plus defender Kerri Harrington. The Wolverines are loaded at midfield, with junior Sarah Biron and sophomore Kate Rich both having been New England Girls All-Stars at the 2009 UnderArmour Underclassmen Games.
While Westwood is stacked, the path to its fourth title in eight years is blocked squarely by Framingham, the defending Division I North champs and the last team besides Westwood to wear the crown. The Flyers, who lost to the Wolverines in the state semifinals in 2009, return the core of their squad, most notably All-Americans Moira Barry (bound for Boston College) and Tanner Guarino (UMass), and Tyler Szymanski, a member of the New England UnderArmour Underclass team who is bound for Merrimack in the fall.
Whoever comes out of Eastern Massachusetts almost certainly will have to tangle with perennial Western Mass. power Longmeadow, which has participated in the last seven state title games, winning one. While the Lancers lost All-American Lauren Halpern to graduation, this is a program that re-loads, rather than rebuilds. Look for Paige Cuscovitch — an Academic All-American in 2009 — and Shea Kusiak to lead the way.
Other likely contenders for the Division I title include Wellesley — led by the dynamic Blake Dietrick, a junior who scored 91 goals and 50 assists during an All-America sophomore campaign — Needham, with Vermont-bound All-American Meghan Conley and her 76 goals from ’09, and Concord-Carlisle, which went 17-2 last year, taking Framingham to the limits before dropping a one-goal heartbreaker in the tournament. Notre Dame Academy will rely on Grace Ciolfi, headed for Gettysburg, as it tries to get past the south semifinals.
Perennial power Lincoln-Sudbury could be in a rebuilding mode after losing All-Americans Jess Griffin (North Carolina) and Alexa Rozelle (Cal), plus goaltender Tess Shapanka (Tufts). Hingham steps up in weight class this year and while the team was likely to contend for a title there, it will have a tough time getting to the top in Division I, particularly if do-everything midfielder Paige Burns can’t return quickly from a leg injury. Without Burns, expect the team’s fortunes to ride on goaltender Julia Todd, a member of the 2009 UnderArmour team.
In Division II, it would be dangerous to pick against Norwell (see box), but South finalist Hopkinton will have senior Mallory Bannon — arguably the state’s best goalie — back in the cage. Duxbury will be fast, deep and dangerous, provided it can find a replacement for graduated goaltender Stephanie Hoomis. One wild-card in the Division II South scene will be Sandwich, which drops down from D-1 this year; the Blue Knights have posted solid records against top-shelf opponents the last two seasons, and they move from being a small fry in the top division to a big fish trying to make waves.
In Division II North, defending champ North Andover will be strong on defense, led by Quinnipiac-bound Emily Samuelman, Winchester will be powered by Lauren Sullivan and Sara Hennessey — bound for Notre Dame and Holy Cross, respectively — while Westford Academy has the electric Rachel Socolow in net, meaning it will like never be far out of a game. Expect Weston to take a step back in 2010, after losing its coach and several key players.
In boys lacrosse, Duxbury’s Massachusetts winning streak ended at 99 games last year, but its run of six straight state titles continued. Until someone can beat the Dragons for the crown, Duxbury will continue to be the talk of New England boys lacrosse.
Duxbury lost stars Quinn Cully, Hakeem Lecky and Jake Harvey to graduation, so it may have a different look and be more defensively-oriented in 2010, led by goaltender Makar Zaverucha (Bucknell), defender J.B. Marston (Quinnipiac) and midfielder John Ricciardi (Roger Williams).
St. John’s Prep, which stopped the Duxbury streak and lost in the title game by a goal, again will be playing the stopper role. The Eagles will be led by Harvard-bound All-American Garrett Campbell, who put up 74 goals and 50 assists in 2009, and running mate Bobby Gallahue and goaltender Nicholas Triano.
The rest of Division I will be a proving ground. The story in Billerica is the return of Craig Flynn, the former coach who built the program, while programs like BC High, Lincoln-Sudbury, Needham and Xaverian have shown enough to compete, but not enough to dethrone the champs over the last few years. There is little reason to expect that trend to change in 2010.
In Division II, defending champion Walpole returns a stellar defense, including Peter Bowes (Loyola), Connor Whittemore (Merrimack), and will be led offensively by UMass-bound all-everything midfielder Ryan Izzo. While no one else in Division II returns as much top-end talent as the Rebels — who finished 24-1 last year — there’s good reason to believe a few teams will keep it close: Four of the final seven games of the 2009 state tournament — including both semifinals — were decided in overtime.
Expect perennial title contender Medfield to re-load, with Winchester, Hingham and Concord-Carlisle all confident they can again go deep in the tournament. Franklin may be the surprise team in Division II, if it can get more support for All-American midfielder Sam Scoba. From central and western Massachusetts, expect last year’s finalists — St. John’s and South Hadley — to have a rematch for the right to play the eastern champs.
One big wild-card in the Division II sweepstakes is Scituate, which moves up a weight class after winning the last two Division III crowns. Scituate loses 175 goals from graduated seniors Kyle Crowley (Bryant) and Greg Reynolds (Southern New Hampshire), as well as defensive stalwart Paul McInerney, but has a deep underclass group that is battle-tested against teams from the bigger divisions, so the Sailors won’t be intimidated playing bigger schools.
Scituate’s move leaves the Division III battle wide open, and may mean that the crown leaves the South Shore for the first time in years. Prior to Scituate’s two-year run, neighboring Cohasset was the division’s dominant team. In fact, since the state first went to three divisions in 2003, Cohasset has been in the quarterfinals or better every year. That streak is unlikely to stop in 2010 with Will Wise (Bowdoin) leading the attack while junior Alex Kinnealey dominates at the face-off X.
Dover-Sherborn — which took Scituate to overtime in the title tilt last year — and Swampscott, which had its best-ever regular season at 17-2 in 2009, will be contenders, but the team that may pick up the South Shore banner from Scituate is Norwell, led by senior goaltender Patrick Johnston, who stopped 74 percent of the shots he faced and gave up just six goals per game in 2009.
