BURLINGTON — It’s always tough to look big picture, especially after falling in a State Championship game.
But for this group of Newburyport girls lacrosse seniors, Thursday night’s 14-10 loss to No. 1 Medfield in the Division 3 title game certainly doesn’t define what their four-year careers have been about. Lilly Pons, Rita Cahalane, Kate Keller, Maddie Heath, Olivia McDonald and Josie Palma have all had their individual successes in the sport. But collectively as a team over the past four springs, what they’ve accomplished together for the Clipper program is truly quite remarkable.
— A 73-8 total record.
— Four CAL Kinney championships.
— Three state semifinal appearances (’21, ’23, ’24).
— Two title game berths (’23, ’24).
— One State Championship (’23).
“They’ve been incredible,” said Newburyport coach Catherine Batchelder. “It’s been an honor to coach them.”
And on Thursday night, you could certainly say that those six seniors, and No. 2 Newburyport (20-3) as a whole, handed their Division 3 championship trophy off to a worthy opponent. The Clippers weren’t able to go back-to-back and defend their title from a year ago, but the top-seeded Warriors (22-3) did their part of going out and earning it.
“It is what it is, you win and you lose,” said Batchelder. “I’m so proud of our girls. To get to this game is amazing, and I thought they played well. I think that unfortunately our shooting wasn’t what it usually is today, and that’s normally our strong suit. The first quarter especially, their goalie had eight saves, which would have opened the game up. We just weren’t shooting the way we normally do, and we dug ourselves a hole we couldn’t come out of.”
When the Division 3 playoff bracket was released a few weeks ago, this was the matchup that everyone had circled.
By the MIAA’s power ranking metric, Newburyport and Medfield were by far the two best teams in the division. Which both squads proved by their similar dominant runs to the championship game — Medfield outscoring opponents 86-18, while Newburyport was at 69-13.
Thankfully, their destined duel in the championship lived up to the hype.
Boston College-bound Kelly Blake, arguably the best player in the entire state, wasted no time getting Medfield going. The senior captain snatched the opening draw out of the air, zoomed down the field, drew a free position and scored within the opening 20 seconds of the game.
But Newburyport didn’t let that talented of a player throw it off its game.
Pons would score to make it 1-1, then after Medfield went back up on an Izzy Kittredge goal, Reese Bromby responded for the Clippers to make it 2-2. The story of the first half, really, were the goalies, as Newburyport’s Kate Keller (12 saves) and Medfield’s Katelyn Nicotera (15 saves) both made some excellent stops. Nicotera had eight saves in the first quarter alone, and a goal from Kendall Herrick gave the Warriors a 3-2 lead after one.
“Katelyn really helped us in the beginning, she made some really good saves,” said Medfield coach Mary Laughna on her goalie. “Then Kelly was insane on the draw, she got a lot of draw control wins for us and really controlled the game. We were patient on offense, waited for the right moment to strike, and we took great shots. We just played smart, all-around lacrosse.”
McDonald would score early in the second quarter to tie things back up at 3-3.
But, despite the Clippers playing strong defense, the Warriors would get goals from Blake, Herrick and Alex Proefrock to take a 6-3 lead into halftime. Laughna was very complimentary of Newburyport’s defensive approach — led by Palma, McDonald, Cahalane, Ani Mellet, Grace Chandler, Jade Steinberg and Olivia Foley — and called in a special favor to try and help solve it. Former Medfield athlete Maggie McCarthy (MHS ’19), who spent four years playing basketball and lacrosse at Harvard before using her graduate year at Duke this spring, was back at practice the past couple days to help this current group of Warriors break it down.
“(Newburyport) plays a different type of defense that we don’t ever see,” said Laughna. “I’ve never seen a high school team play that. But we practiced yesterday with Maggie McCarthy, who plays at Duke. She’s their rover and she came to practice yesterday, and I think that really helped us. It definitely was a challenge at first, trying to figure out how to play against it, but I think we settled in.”
But even after the rough finish to the first half, the Clippers weren’t going away.
Pons won the first two draws of the third quarter, and two straight goals from McDonald immediately brought it back to a 6-5 game. While Blake was still electric in the draw circle for Medfield, for the game, the Warriors only won three more controls.
Newburyport, however, could never grab a lead all night.
Proefrock and Blake scored to make it 8-5, then after Pons stopped the run with a goal, the Warriors got tallies from Proefrock, Herrick and Maeve Kelly to open up an 11-6 lead. Pons and Bromby scored back-to-back, but with five seconds left in the third, Michaela McDonald found the back of the net to make it 12-8 heading into the final frame.
Blake then set up Proefrock for her fourth goal of the game, and Kelly soon after to make it 14-9.
“She was very good,” said Batchelder of Blake. “We held her to three goals and I was fine with that. We just didn’t step up and make the stops we should have made. We did have a couple of defensive holds, and overall I was really proud of our defense. And I think if our offense could get today back, they would take it.”
But the Clippers fought until the end.
Cahalane scored with 4:42 left to make it 14-10, and also got fouled on the play to give the Clippers possession back. There was still time, but after two straight shots went wide, the Warriors finally regained possession with 2:30 left and started playing keep-away.
Soon after, they were celebrating their Division 3 State Championship on the same Burlington High Schoool field that the Clippers won it on last year.
Medfield 14, Newburyport 10
Division 3 State Championship
Goals: N — Lilly Pons 3, Olivia McDonald 3, Reese Bromby 3, Rita Cahalane; M — Kelly Blake 3, Alex Proefrock 4, Kendall Herrick 3, Maeve Kelly 2, Izzy Kittredge, Michaela McDonald
Saves: N — Kate Keller 14; M — Kate Nicotera 15
Medfield (22-3): 3 3 6 2 — 14
Newburyport (20-3): — 10