Hey! Hey! W-A! Halloween may be over fourth months away, but yesterday it was a good day to be a Grey Ghost. The Westford girls lacrosse team upset the fourth-seeded North Andover Scarlet Knights 22-12 yesterday at Walsh Field in a Division 1 North first round match-up. T
he Grey Ghosts opened the scoring 70 seconds in and never looked back. Senior captain Rachel Secrist scored the first two goals for the Ghosts and sophomore Bailey Mongillo added the next two. Secrist and Mongillo would finish with seven and eight goals respectively.
“It feels pretty good, but I have to give credit to my teammates,” Mongillo said. “They saw me when I was open and got me the ball. I just finished the play. We came out here and we really wanted it. We knew it was going to be a tough game.”
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The Knights kept it close early, going into the intermission down 7-4, but the Westford attack was too much. The Grey Ghosts pumped in six goals to start the half to blow the lead up to 13-4. The Knights then scored the next two goals to close the gap to seven, but a three-goal run by Westford, including two goals 13 seconds apart, buried North Andover for good.
“Unbelievable win,” Westford coach Julie Oliver said. “We knew from the time we played them before where we won 10-9 what they could do and what we would do. We had seven different goal scorers. Everyone is dangerous. Everyone can take the ball to goal.”
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Senior Molly Klinka had three goals and four others each had a goal apiece.
For the Knights, it was a sour end to what had been a super season. After winning 14 of their first 15, North Andover dropped three of their last four. The Knights were outscored 46-26 in those three losses.
“It really hurts for our seniors,” North Andover coach Karen Lahey said. “It’s not a reflection of the type of team that we are at all, especially for the seniors because we haven’t given up 22 goals in two years. This was a really hard one to take."
Sophomore Pam Coufos, senior Maggie Samuelman, and junior Olivia Samuelman each had a hat trick for the Knights.
With the score 20-12 Westford stayed on the attack and netted two goals in the last forty seconds, which did not sit well with the home fans.
Up next for Westford will be a road game against either Central Catholic or Lexington, who play today at
