BEVERLY — The seven goals she scored Monday afternoon were certainly nice; Lily Shea wasn’t denying that. Nor was the fact that she reached 200 points for her varsity career.
But in reality, what Shea and the Panthers really want can’t be achieved in early April; for that, they’ll need to wait until the latter stages of May.
“We’ve been working towards winning the Northeastern Conference title since I was a a freshman, and I 100 percent think we have the team to do it this season,” said Shea, a senior captain whose scoring barrage helped the Orange-and-Black taken down league rival Marblehead, 17-9, Monday at Forti Field.
“The other captains and I (Sam Sprissler, Jenna Schweizer, and junior Joselyn Silva) sat down with Coach (Courtney) McKallagat before the season, and one of the big things we said was, ‘We want to win the NEC and go far in the playoffs’.”
Shea, who also had an assist, netted five goals before halftime as the hosts shot out to an 11-4 lead. Marblehead scored three straight to open the third quarter and trim their deficit to three, but the Panthers responded with four straight goals entering the fourth quarter.
“Lily’s really an assist kid because she sees the field so well and can really distribute the ball,” said McKallagat, her team improving to 2-2. “But this year she’s really stepped up into that big scorer’s role and taken a big load off of Joselyn.”
Silva, who had four goals and an assist Monday, is also close to reaching the 200-point mark after netting her 100th goal two games ago. She, along with Shea (whose 100th goal came last time out) and senior midfielder Lauren Caley (who already has 200+ points) are each in range of breaking the BHS career scoring record of 239 points, set by Sabrina Beaudry.
“Joss is a bullet out there with her speed, and her lacrosse IQ is terrific,” said McKallagat. “If she gets possession off the draw and has time and space, she knows when the opportunity is there to take it our pull it out and get the team involved.”
Marblehead (now 0-2) won the majority of draw controls Monday, but turned the ball over at midfield and paid the price for it.
“We’re a work in progress right now,” said head coach Annie Madden, whose 27-player roster contains many underclassmen. “Beverly is extremely talented; we knew that going on. In fact, the entire NEC is very strong this year. So in order to keep up we need to catch that ball, take care of it, and be smart when we have it in our stick.
“You have to make good conscious decisions when you have the ball in order to stay in games like this.”
Ramona Gillett powered the Magicians offensively with three first half goals in addition to five draw controls.
“Ramona’s one-track mind of going to the net when she has the ball is exactly what we need,” said Madden, who also praised the play of defender Katie Burns.
Maddie Forbes also had a nice game with two tallies, one assist and three draws for Marblehead. Kathryn Commons finished with two goals; Gretchen Smith and Caitlin Ryan added solo goals; and goaltender Molly Bullard had several big stops among her nine total.
Sprissler added two tallies and two assists for Beverly, with Morgan Linskey, Schweizer, Lindsay Kaszynski and freshman Sasha Miller (her first varsity goal) also scoring.
“I love offense, and we want to get a lot of people involved, move the ball around and see people contribute,” said McKallagat, who also praised Liz Wilder and sisters Charlotte and Annabelle Miller defensively in front of goalie Madeline Reynolds (6 saves).
“I think it was very smart for Coach McKallagat to schedule (North Andover and Ipswich) to start the season for us,” added Shea, who will continue her lacrosse career at St. Anselm while majoring in Nursing and minoring in Spanish. “It made us realize early on what we needed to work on to get better. We’ve come come out much better these last two games in conference play and are finishing so much better than we had been.”