Sports Roundup: Girls Lax Beats Nauset, Baseball Falls Short Against Monomoy
David Creed •
This Whaler sports roundup includes an update on the girls lacrosse team following a road victory against a Cape & Island opponent, as well as the baseball team after a busy weekend featuring three games in two days.
Girls Lax Beats Nauset, Improves To 3-1
The Whaler girls lacrosse team suffered a frustrating loss on Thursday to Cape Cod Academy and after the game, head coach Jami Lower said she was excited for her players to have one more opportunity to win a game before school vacation week began on April 21st. On Friday, they traveled to Nauset to play the Warriors and won 11-8 in another close matchup.
Dylan Damian led the way for Nantucket in the scoring department with three goals and added an assist. Louisa Beni, Claire Genthner, and Mayson Lower each scored two goals – with Lower adding a pair of assists. Grace Hanlon scored one goal and Mia Beaudette scored one goal while tallying two assists.
The Whalers have been forced to navigate a cloudy schedule with so many postponements due to poor weather and boat cancellations but still find themselves with a 3-1 record through the first month of the season while fielding a rather young, inexperienced lineup.
Due to the postponements, the Whalers will be very busy once their regular season resumes on Monday April 28th at home against the Dennis-Yarmouth Dolphins at 4 p.m. They will play 13 games in 26 days to end the season – including six games in the first 10 days post-school vacation from April 28th through May 8th.
Baseball Loses Three Games Over Weekend
The baseball team hosted the Monomoy Sharks Friday afternoon for a league matchup and while they lost 9-3, it was a game that could have easily swung in Nantucket’s favor.
"We're really happy with it. We battled," head coach Jack Pearson said of Friday’s game. "Keegan (Bedell) didn't necessarily have his best stuff but he pitched well with runners on base. We defended well. Henry (Tejada) at third base was busy and he was making plays. Eli (MacIver) caught a good game. No surprise there. That kid (on Monomoy) is a pitcher. He's come over here the last two years and beat us. It's not overwhelming velocity, but he mixes his pitches well. He has a pretty good slider and second time through the lineup, we're making adjustments and we're hitting the ball hard. We hit what, four line drives to the center fielder? If those find some grass, it is a different game.”
With Monomoy up 3-0 entering the bottom half of the fifth inning, Nantucket rallied for three runs to tie the game 3-3 thanks to some timely hitting from Alex Horton (two-run triple) and Justin Torres, who drove Horton home to tie the game with an RBI double.
"He hit that right on the nail and I don't think he knew how hard he hit," Pearson said of Horton’s triple. "It was his read to take the triple. The play was in front of him, he went for it, I'm glad he did, safe at third, and it was a big jolt to the bench, to the momentum.”
To Monomoy’s credit, they took advantage of a rare Nantucket miscue in the field in the top of the sixth inning when a soft grounder was hit with two outs. It led to some indecision from a Whaler infielder as to whether they should take the force out at first, which would have been a bang-bang play, or get the tag on the runner heading to third who would have been out by a few feet. Ultimately, both runners were ruled safe and the inning was extended after Nantucket failed to tag the Shark runner caught in a rundown between second and third base. The Sharks went on a tear with some strong cuts at the plate - scoring six runs in the inning to secure the victory.
"I don't hate that throw to third," Pearson said of the play that could have prevented a six-run sixth inning. "The play is in front of you. You got him dead to rights. We just didn't execute the rundown. We got to run him all the way back to second base instead of shortening it. But what are you going to do? We know that we're going to beat that team next time around. We have that belief now. We can hang with them. That was their best pitcher.”
Pearson added that he liked some of the at-bats by juniors Andrew Lavin and Henry Tejada, as well as sophomore Eli MacIver. Nantucket also played a doubleheader on Saturday, April 19th on the road against Westport High School. The first game was at 11:30 a.m. and the Whalers lost 13-3. In the second game, which began at 1:30 p.m., Nantucket lost 14-13.
The Whalers are now 3-5 after losing three games in two days but will have some time to regroup during school vacation week before restarting their regular season on Saturday, April 26th at home against O’Bryant High School with a doubleheader. Game one is scheduled for 1 p.m. and game two is scheduled for 3:30 p.m. You can view more photos from Friday’s game against Monomoy here.
SCHEDULE AHEAD:
It is school vacation week, and as a result there are no games currently scheduled to take place until Saturday, April 26th when the baseball team hosts O'Bryant for a doubleheader at 1 p.m. and 3:30 p.m. and the boys lacrosse team will host Groton-Dunstable Regional High School at 1 p.m.