Central Mass. Well-Represented in Spring Sports
While there were no state championships this spring at Groton-Dunstable, several teams qualified for post-season including girls' softball, and boys and girls lacrosse. Track and field was represented as junior Evan Lexo placed 2nd in 100M at the All State meet and Nate Dante, John Thorburn, Lucas Acaba and Evan Lexo (4 x 100) qualified and competed at the All-States.
No.6 seed Groton-Dunstable defeated No.2 seed Arlington Catholic, 11-5, in a Division 3 Central/East semi-final boys' lacrosse game but lost to two time state champs Dover-Sherborn in Central/East D-3 boys' lacrosse final. But the Raiders, trying to claim the title for the third straight year, fell 10-9 to Cohasset in the state championship game.
Crusaders goalkeeper P.J. Kendall had an impressive 7.35 goals against average was ranked fourth in league while Quintin Forbes and Zach Cotoni led the team in scoring with 26/38, 64 points and 29/27, 56 points respectively. Forbes was second in league in scoring while Cotoni was fourth.
Under first year head coach Sara Valacer, Groton-Dunstable (13-9) went to the Central/West Division 2 Semi-final lacrosse game, before bowing to Bromfield (19-1) in a heart-breaking 14-13 loss.
For the Trojans, Sophia Turchetta scored 11 goals in the win against GD and peppered opposing goalies with 134 goals/40 assists (154 pts.) for the season. Coaches will be spending many hours scheming ways to stop the talented sophomore.
Leading scorers for GD included Nicki Wilkinson (67/34, 101 pts.), Livy Rubeski (62/30, 92 pts.) and Livy penney (43/26, 69 pts.) All three were ranked among the top 10 in the league. Goalie Maria Antonellis was ranked fifth in league with an 11.33 goals against average.
Newburyport (16-4) went on to win the Division 2 State Championship defeating Trojans, 7-6 in a game played at Boston University. For the Clippers, it was first D-2 state title in girls lacrosse.
In baseball, neighboring Leominster (21-4) defeated Norwood 6-1 taking Division 1 State title. For Crusaders Nick D'Angelo .385, Alex Marken .383, Aiden Ward .353 and Andrew Sinnery .328 were leading hitters.
No. 10 seed Groton-Dunstable (10-11) lost to Shrewsbury, 11-0, in an MIAA Central Division1 first round softball game. St. Peter-Marian (18-2) had too much for Colonials, winning 10-6 before falling to eventual 2014 MIAA Softball Central Division 1 title holder Holy Name (18-2) of Worcester. Crusader pitcher Alyssa Ash posted a 3.21 ERA and offensively, went 35-for-68 for a very impressive .515 batting average including two HRs and 25 RBIs. Erin Olson was the second leading batter for GD with a .405 average.
