As crazy as it may sound at this point of the season, something new happened to the Newburyport boys lacrosse team during Monday’s game against Manchester Essex.
The Clippers trailed by four, 6-2, heading into halftime.
A deficit that the team hadn’t faced all season, as it’s mainly just rolled over everyone on its schedule. The one loss that Newburyport (14-1) does have this spring was a back-and-forth, ultimately one-goal setback against a Concord-Carlisle team currently ranked No. 6 in Division 1.
So, yeah, not necessarily a “bad loss” there.
But even when it looked like the Clippers were headed for their second defeat of the year on Monday, and potentially losing their status as “the best team in the CAL” in the process, coach Josh Wedge wasn’t nervous at all. Because he knows that with senior captains Colin Fuller, Eli Sirota, Brian Lucy, Henry Walker and Brendan Grossman leading the way, this team is capable of doing something never accomplished in program history.
Newburyport has routinely been a top-5 seed in Division 3.
But with the combined leadership and skill of those five at the top, the Clippers firmly believe that this group has what it takes to break through and finally win the program’s first ever state championship.
“They’re just the best we’ve ever had,” said Wedge. “No coach could ever ask for anything more from their captains.”
Newburyport would go on to win Monday’s game, 11-6.
Yup, after trailing by four at halftime, the Clippers would score nine unanswered — holding a Manchester Essex (13-3) squad ranked No. 6 in Division 4 scoreless the entire second half. It was a victory that clinched the second straight CAL Kinney championship for the Clippers, and the program’s fourth over the past five seasons.
And talking with the captains, it’s easy to see where the team’s “killer mindset” comes from.
“Chemistry,” said Sirota. “In past year’s we haven’t been as tight as we are this year. We’re also held to a higher standard this year, I feel like, than in previous years. We’ve coasted through some games where we shouldn’t of in the past, and that’s how we’re getting better: By really punishing teams when they should be punished.”
From the top down
On paper, coming into the season, Newburyport had everything.
And so far, that “paper” has translated to the field exactly as planned.
Even after Monday’s game, Newburyport’s goal differential this year: 215-69 (+146). The Clippers have held 11 of their 15 opponents to five goals or less — with rival Pentucket the lone team to score in double figures on them — while offensively they’ve scored 15 or more goals 10 times.
“The fact that we’re winning so much has helped to keep everyone focused,” said Walker. “Everyone knows what we’re capable of. There’s kind of a feeling going around in the locker room, like, ‘This is the year. If there’s ever been a year, this is it.’ We can do it.”
Walker is a long-stick defender by trade, but has been asked to do a bit of everything this year. Mostly, though, he’s been leading the defense along with Lucy, a returning Daily News All-Star and the team’s lone scholarship player who’s committed to Saint Anselm College. The duo were basically the lone returning starters on the defense, and were asked to bring along the younger guys like Jack Miller and Hayden Scott.
Safe to say they’ve done their job.
And it always helps to have a two-year veteran starting goalie like the Clippers do in Grossman.
“I think Brian Lucy is the best defenseman in the CAL,” said Wedge. “What held him back his first few years was he hadn’t put on the body weight to play defense against the tougher guys. But that’s changed this year, he’s way more physical and athletic.
“Then Henry Walker has played every position this season except for goalie, and if we needed him to play goalie, he definitely would. Nobody on our team has done more and played more roles than him.
“And the way Brendan has developed as a goalie, you can’t be as good as we’ve been without a good goalie. The defense hasn’t been as good as the numbers would say, but he’s just been making some huge saves for us all season.”
Then offensively, Newburyport has been a machine.
Both Fuller and Sirota are also returning Daily News All-Stars from a year ago, and the Clippers welcomed back the majority of their offense alongside them between Carter Scott, Davis Pons, Everett Kenney and Sam Craig. Not surprisingly, Fuller leads the team with 69 points on the season (53g, 16a), while Sirota is second with 50 (28g, 22a). Then the trio of Pons (32g, 14a) Craig (14g, 14a) and Scott (24g, 2a) have remained productive, while new faces Asher Kinsey (24g, 3a), Henry Waddell (13g, 10a) and Luke MacIsaac (11g, 6a) have all risen to that next level.
And it certainly helps when the team’s final returning Daily News All-Star, junior Matt Page, is winning 73.5% of his faceoffs (180-of-245).
“I think the thing that makes them special as captains is how positive they are with everybody,” said Wedge. “I mean, Eli and Colin are excellent two-sport athletes in two really physical sports in football and lacrosse. That could come with a certain stigma with how demanding those sports are pysically, but they’re just so positive with the younger guys. They know how to bring them along, and that they need to instill confidence in them and pump them up.”
Overcoming injury … and illness
Monday’s halftime deficit wasn’t the first test of adversity Newburyport faced this year.
At one point during the season the Clippers had four players out with mononucleosis, and Grossman remains sidelined with the illness despite never showing any sypmtoms. The team is hoping to get him back early in the upcoming Division 3 playoff run, but in his absence sophomore Ben Buchmayr has performed admirably.
Throw in a few more injuries, and it’s been a makeshift lineup some games.
“The thing about all our captains is that they don’t care about their stats, or covering the other team’s best guy,” said Wedge. “Whatever the coaches need them to do, they’re 100% on board. They never push back on anything.”
But no matter what has come up, the Clippers just keep pushing forward.
“At this point of the year, we’re working harder every day in practice then we have been in the past,” said Fuller. “There’s been years were some people’s focus has started to fade away, but I feel like this year we’re really dialed in.”
Clippers know it’s ‘Title Time’
Many involved with the program believe this could be the year that first ever state championship comes home.
And truly, Newburyport has been all around it.
In 2021 the Clippers were the No. 3 seed in the then-Division 3 North tourney, and would win the Sectional before falling to Dover-Sherborn in the state semifinal.
In 2022, the first year of the new statewide format, they were the No. 8 seed in Division 3 and were upset in the first round.
The Clippers remedied that a year later, however, earning the No. 3 seed in the 2023 tournament and making it to the Final Four.
Then last year, as the No. 4 seed, they lost a heartbreaker just six seconds into overtime during their quarterfinal matchup against Nauset.
“The last couple of years we’ve come so close to a championship, and I feel like we know what it feels like to go out in the semifinals.” said Lucy. “So I feel like it’s been in our grasp, and we know what we need to do to finally get over that hump.”
Strangely, Newburyport is in line to enter this year’s tourney with one of its “worst” seeds, as basically all spring long the Clippers have been stuck in that No. 6 spot in Division 3.
But there’s a good reason for that.
In back-to-back games earlier in the season, Newburyport beat defending New Hampshire state champion Portsmouth, followed by a victory over perennial Maine state champion Cape Elizabeth. But for both of those teams, the Clippers were the only Massachusetts squad on their schedule this year. So with that knowledge — or lack thereof — the MIAA algorithm can’t rate either of those wins too highly.
That’s why when you look at Tuesday’s latest rankings update, Newburyport’s “opponent rating” is the lowest of any Division 3 team in the top-8 — when really there’s two quility wins on its résumé that aren’t counted as such. And with only a 0.9 percentage point difference between the Clippers and No. 2 Nauset, who’s to say that “gap” could have been made up if those wins were calculated in differently.
Regardless, Newburyport will be ready for whoever shows up on its playoff path.
“I don’t think this year we’re afraid of anybody, we’re up to the challenge,” said Grossman. “Our eyes are set on a state championship, and I don’t think anybody is going to get in our way.”