PEABODY — It may be cliché, but Ipswich High goaltender Emma Paquette lets her action on the field do most of the talking for her.
A bubbly yet quiet senior netminder, Paquette was at her best Monday afternoon at a windy Coley Lee Field, making a season high 16 saves as her Tigers doubled up host Peabody High, 12-6, in a battle of non-league North Shore powerhouses.
“It feels great to win here,” Paquette said with a chuckle after helping Ipswich improve to 13-2 on the season.
Headed to UMass Boston to continue her lacrosse career, Paquette made seven saves in the second quarter as Ipswich took a 6-4 lead into halftime. The visitors then produced five unanswered tallies in the third quarter to take a commanding lead, and Paquette coming up big whenever Peabody made a move offensively, particularly on underhanded scoop saves.
“They ended up shooting at the same range, which I picked up pretty quickly and got locked in,” said Paquette, who also finished with two ground balls. “I could tell in the first half where they were going to go and I’d yell out to my defenders (Faith Hauenstein, Avery Brown, Maddie Hanson and Jade Wilcox).”
Having been to the Division 4 state championship game in back-to-back seasons, Ipswich got five goals and an assist from star Allie Wile, increasing her team-leading totals to 54 tallies and 63 total points.
Lyla Greenleaf (30 goals, 29 assists on the season), who has scored 13 points over the last two games, added three goals and two helpers Monday. The Tigers also received two goals each from Lucy Winthrop and Ella McCarthy.
But it was Paquette who was the star of the show on this day.
“It was really nice to have a good test for Emma heading into the state tournament,” added Ipswich head coach Allison Tivnan, whose team defeated Peabody by the same score last season. “Sometimes when you don’t see a lot of shots, like she usually doesn’t, it can be hard. But Emma was really locked in today.”
Paquette and her defenders limited the Tanners’ Big Three scorers of midfielders Brooke Lomasney (2 goals, 2 assists), Ally Bettencourt (1 goal) and Madi Barnett (1 assist).
Lomasney’s two goals gave her 61 on the season and a North Shore leading 98 points.
“She’s a very good goalie, covered a lot of the net, cut down the angles and was very good down low,” Peabody head coach Michelle Roach said of Paquette. “We talked about not shooting it straight on her; to try and be creative and cause some chaos out front. My squad is hard to compete against and kept pushing back, particularly in the second and fourth quarters. Unfortunately, we weren’t able to get that solid footing we needed early on.
“These are the type of teams we’re going to see in the Division 1 tournament,” she added. “Ipswich is very fast paced, they play with a sense of urgency, they’re well coached. We know we need to be able to compete with teams like this to go far in the playoffs. It was important for us to have some teams this last week (of the regular season) that would challenge and push us, to see where our gaps are, what we’re doing well, and what we need to work on.”
Victoria Vaz, an attack, added two goals for Peabody, with Bella Kassis adding one. Goaltender Caitlin Snow turned aside seven shots in net.
“Victoria makes really good cuts in tight spaces, and Bella came up with some big ground balls for us. (Defender) Connie Patturelli also played a strong game,” said Roach, whose team plays at Saugus Tuesday before hosting Beverly in its regular season finale Thursday at 7:30 p.m. A Tanner win in that contest would make them Northeastern Conference co-champions with the Panthers.
“I think we’re up to it,” Roach said of Thursday’s big tilt.
“Sharing the ball more offensively while keeping our shooting percentage at a high level, playing with a sense of urgency and attention to detail, those things are especially important at this time of year,” Tivnan remarked.