Monomoy Girls Lacrosse Faces Late-season Tests

 HARWICH – The regular season for the Monomoy girls lacrosse team wrapped up with a stretch of games that could easily be considered an end-of-season test, of sorts. 

The Sharks faced Nantucket, ranked seventh overall in the MIAA’s Division 4 power rankings, twice in the span of a few days, then hosted Falmouth, ranked seventh in Division 3, to round out the cluster of formidable matchups.

Monomoy dropped both games against Nantucket, losing the first Friday 8-4 and the second Monday 14-6.

“We held up pretty well,” senior captain Cassadi Manchuk said Friday. “They’re a really tough team.”

A match against Falmouth as well as a regular season-ending bout against Falmouth Academy, which Monomoy beat 16-8 earlier in the year, occurred after press time. 

“I’m very proud of how the team played,” senior captain Lucy Bates said Friday after playing Nantucket. “I think we put up a super good fight, and I’m very happy with how it turned out.”

Prior to seeing Nantucket, the Sharks (11-5) hadn’t yet faced top teams this season, according to senior captain Paige Nash, so the games showed what Monomoy “is capable of,” she said.

The team has an identity centered around always putting in effort and never giving up, according to head coach Brendan Pursel.

“I think that the girls do a good job of not focusing on wins and losses but focusing on what they can do to get better, putting in the effort on the field,” he said. “They’re not focused on how far we’re going in the tournament. They’re not focused on whether or not we’re going out with the win.

“You can hear them all today. We lost, but they’re still thinking about the things they did well and how they can put in more effort next time and talking about what we’re doing on Monday instead of the loss or the win.”

Junior midfielder Tessa Grodzicki scored three goals and Nash scored once in the loss Friday. Monomoy led 4-3 midway through the third quarter, but the Whalers equalized minutes later then pulled away in the fourth. 

Junior goalkeeper Morgan Willis logged 14 saves. She said Monomoy “definitely played as a team” and “really held it” to Nantucket on defense.

“They took some pretty hard shots, harder than I’ve really seen all season, and it was a good test for me, and I think I really held it to them and kept the balls out of the net,” Willis said.

Monomoy has reached the second round of the state tournament two seasons in a row. After losing some graduating seniors from last year, everyone this year has stepped up to pull their weight, according to Bates, who also said goal-scoring has been spread throughout the entire lineup rather than just coming from one or two players.

“We’re really good at working together when we need to,” she said.