Monomoy Field Hockey Falls To Uxbridge In State Final

WORCESTER – Another historic season ended with another loss to Uxbridge. 

For a second straight year, the Monomoy field hockey team fell to Uxbridge in the Division 4 state championship. The second-seeded Sharks suffered a 3-1 loss to the top-seeded Spartans on Saturday at Worcester State. 

It marked the fourth straight state title for Uxbridge (21-2), which upended Monomoy 4-0 in the 2023 final at WPI. The Sharks finished their season 20-1-2.

“That’s fantastic effort,” Monomoy coach Kyle Cappallo said. “We knew this was going to be a tough game coming in. You have to execute your strategy near-flawlessly in order to match them. 

“We figured if we could at least get some corners, we could have a good opportunity to get some goals. We just couldn’t get enough of them, and we had to move people around to try to neutralize them and slow them down. It’s hard to do both at the same time.”

Junior Julianna Casucci netted all three goals for Uxbridge, opening the scoring with a backhand into the top shelf in the second quarter before adding a second goal to give the Spartans a 2-0 lead at halftime. 

Monomoy junior Sam Clarke put home a rebound on a Monomoy corner to cut Uxbridge’s lead to 2-1 with 8 seconds remaining in the third quarter, though Casucci added an insurance goal in the fourth quarter to help seal the win for the Spartans. 

“We can’t leave them alone inside the circle,” Cappallo said. “That was a mistake on our part. We knew we had to mark them very, very tightly. We just didn’t get it done in that situation; that was the reason for their first two goals.”

After Monomoy’s 3-0 victory over Sutton in the state semifinals, Cappallo said the Sharks were in much better position heading into this year’s final than they were last fall. 

The team’s preparedness was on display early Saturday, as the Sharks dominated possession for much of the first quarter.

“In the first 10 minutes, I thought we played pretty solid,” the coach said. “Last year was a 4-0 loss, this was basically 2-1 until a few minutes left. We’re chipping away, but they’re a very deep team at every position — they have a lot of talent. You basically have to outplay them at every position for 60 minutes in order to get ahead.”

Cappallo was proud of his players for leading the program to new heights. The team became the first program in school history to reach back-to-back state championships after making its first state final appearance in 2023. 

Although the team will lose key contributors in seniors Cassadi Manchuk, Bella Bellefeuille, Emily Layton and Ella Reeves to graduation, Cappallo is confident the Sharks will continue to retool their lineup and compete for another state final appearance in 2025.

“For any team to get to a state final back-to-back is a sign of the team’s depth,” Cappallo said. “You have to be able to replace the players you graduate, and we did that this year with Mia Zimmerman, our eighth-grader who stepped up and was our third-leading scorer and was huge for us. 

“We have some very solid players coming up from middle school next year, so I think we have a good chance of getting back here next year.”