Mounties Soar on Senior Day
WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. – Sarah Polumbo and Ainsley Abel combined for 11 goals, and Christy Rech made four saves Friday to lead the Mount Greylock girls lacrosse team to a 15-4 win over rival Wahconah.
But their leadership goes far beyond a handful of statistics or a single day on the field.
“The three of them are just amazing,” Mount Greylock coach Jeff Stripp said. “They’ve done so much for the program, from helping with teaching the youth and the younger players on our team – they really embraced that role this year.
“They all deserve the credit they’re getting. All three are going off to play in college, and they deserve it. They’re super excited about where they’re going and their next steps. They work really hard. This is something they’ve wanted.
“And we’ll see how far we can take it with their leadership into the playoffs and stuff.”
The Mounties (13-2) knew going into yesterday’s game that their season will end in the Division 4 state tournament.
An 11-goal margin on Friday against Wahconah (5-6) will only help the Mounties seeding; going into the game, they were the 15th-ranked team in the commonwealth according to the MIAA’s power rankings.
Friday’s contest was preceded by Mount Greylock’s Senior Night festivities, when Abel, Polumbo and Rech each took her turn posing for photos with family and hearing tributes from the younger teammates they have helped lead this spring.
More than a few tears were shed during the ceremony, and sometimes those emotions can get in the way of a team when the game begins.
The Mounties went in the other direction, riding the emotion to a fast start that put the game all but out of reach before half-time.
Polumbo scored the game’s first goal 39 seconds into play. And Gianna Pesce and Molly Cangelosi each found the back of the net to make it 3-0 with just more than four minutes off the clock.
After Ava Massaro (three goals) scored for Wahconah in the seventh minute, Abel scored on a free position 34 seconds later to start an 8-0 run to half-time that got the game into running time with 11:20 left in the half.
“After the emotions from the senior stuff, I had no real pregame talk to them,” Stripp said. “I just said, ‘Take the emotions you’re feeling right now and put it out onto the field.’ That was a great start for us. The first 10 minutes were amazing.”
Abel’s third goal of the game came at the 9:30 mark to give Mount Greylock a 9-1 lead. She and Polumbo each tacked on another goal before half-time.
Rech did not need to make a save in the first half, but she did make an interception outside her crease late in the half to get on the stat sheet.
She had a lot more business to tend to in the second half when Wahconah rallied.
“At half-time, we said, we didn’t come to play,” Wahconah coach Kathy Budaj said. “It was obvious. And we have to have pride. We are the Warriors. We have to have pride in who we are. And they did. They came out and played a great second half. And that’s all I could ask for.
“[Mount Greylock] is a good team. It is what it is. But, overall, I’m happy with that second half.”
Pesce and Polumbo (seven goals) scored early in the half to push Mount Greylock’s lead to 13-1.
But Wahconah scored three of the last five goals to end the game – two more from Massaro and one from Anna Doyle.
Wahconah will be looking to ride some of the good feelings it got from that second half into Saturday’s game against Mount Anthony Union of Bennington, Vt., at Berkshire Community College.
Mount Greylock, which will host the Patriots next Friday, first goes to Belchertown on Tuesday.
“We had some goals today of what we wanted to accomplish, and we have some tweaks,” Stripp said. “I think things like what showed up in the first 10 minutes, starting fast, is important to us in getting into a rhythm, certainly, offensively, and shutting down opponents’ offense right from the start.
“We tried a couple of different defensive sets out there and different offensive sets. I’ll look at the tape and see how we did, but I’m pretty pleased with what I saw on the field.”