Girls Lax Suffers Rare Defeat In Overtime Against Sandwich, Splits Weekend Slate Of Games

It has been a rare occurrence this season to see the Whaler girls lacrosse team come up short on the scoreboard. After beating the Barnstable Red Hawks 15-3 on Saturday, they entered Sunday on an eight-game win streak as they welcomed one of Div. 4’s best, the Sandwich Blue Knights, to the island for a Sunday morning matchup.

The Whalers appeared to be in control of the game on multiple occasions, but Sandwich was able to battle back and force the game to overtime. The Blue Knights beat Nantucket 11-10 to snap the Whaler’s win streak, dropping Nantucket to 11-3 this season.

The Blue Knights jumped out to an early 3-1 lead with 18:56 to play in the first half, but Nantucket quickly answered and in less than five minutes of game time suddenly had a 6-3 lead.

Nantucket’s fourth goal was set up by star midfielder Bailey Lower, who found another star midfielder Emerson Pekarcik for the go-ahead tally and after Pekarcik scored another to make it 5-3, sophomore midfielder Mayson Lower had a tremendous individual effort racing up the field before passing the ball off to a wide-open Cydney Mosscrop, who slipped it past the Sandwich goalie to make it 6-3 with 13:26 to go in the first half.

The Blue Knights scored a goal to cut Nantucket’s lead to 6-4 with 11:43 to play in the half but after 12 minutes and change of high offensive production, it took nearly seven minutes for another goal to be scored. It was Sandwich who scored it with just over three minutes to play before halftime to make it 6-5 and then they scored another to tie the game 6-6 going into the half with 21 seconds to go.

Bailey Lower gave Nantucket their lead back quickly to begin the second half – just over two minutes into it (22:59). They held that lead for over seven minutes until Sandwich tied it again to make it 7-7 with 15:02 to go. That first second half goal for the Blue Knights was the first of three straight goals, which put the Whalers in a 9-7 hole with 9:03 to go in the game.

Pekarcik showed off her athleticism at the 8:31 mark and just over 30 seconds after Sandwich took a two-goal lead. She zigged and zagged through the Blue Knight’s defense before ripping a shot top right to make it 9-8.

Then just under a minute later, it was Bailey Lower once again finding the back of the net from an off-angle with a shot that had some high velocity to make it 9-9 with 7:33 to go.

Pekarcik and Lower equalized the game, and so it was only fitting for the third player of Nantucket’s big three to get involved. Mosscrop scored with 6:25 to play to make it 10-9.

For the next three minutes the Whalers held off Sandwich until the equalizer was scored with 3:36 to go. In the final two minutes while Sandwich had possession, Bailey Lower made a tremendous defensive play to get her team possession with a chance to score an end-of-game goal, but Sandwich’s defense held strong to force overtime.

After some quality chances that were turned away, the Blue Knights finally scored the game-winner to hand the Whalers their third loss and officially earn a split in the season series after Nantucket beat Sandwich on the road 16-12 last week.

Mosscrop finished the day with four goals while Pekarcik and Bailey Lower each had three. On Saturday in Nantucket’s blowout victory over the Red Hawks, Mosscrop led the team with six goals while Bailey Lower (four goals), Pekarcik (two goals), sophomore Suz Peraner (two goals), and freshman Dylan Damian (one goal) rounded out the scoring.

Junior goalie Claire Misurelli had one of her best games of the season on Saturday, making nine saves. She also made some high-quality stops in the Sandwich game despite the negative outcome.

The Whalers will be in action next on Tuesday, May 16 when they host the Falmouth Clippers at 4 p.m. Nantucket played Falmouth on the road earlier this season, beating them 14-10. The Clippers are 6-6 this season and currently ranked #10 in the Div. 2 state rankings.