The Manchester Essex boys lacrosse team traveled to Hamilton Wenham to kick off Cape Ann League play, and the first game of the season. Lots of sloppy play led to many back and forth moments for both teams, but it was the Generals who were in control most of the first half, leading comfortably 3-0 after one, and 5-1 at halftime. The second half was a complete 180 degree turn. The visiting Hornets rallied a 5-goal run that began late in the third quarter to spark some life and eventually force overtime. Six different goal scorers for the Hornets showed depth on their side, and determination from all points of the field. Hamilton Wenham controlled pace of play in the overtime period, but it was Manchester Essex that turned the ball over three times in the remaining minutes of sudden death, which eventually lead to a miscommunication and break down on defense, where a General’s midfielder got an inbound pass and bounced it high top corner to end the game 7-6 in favor of the home team. Instead of being discouraged after a loss on away turf, the Hornets are feeling optimistic after a hard-fought comeback against a very strong Generals program. Goals were scored by Declan Kirk, Quinn Brady, Brennan Twombly, Henry Thurlow, Chase Dickson and Jack Crompton. Hayden Brady and Jack Dipasquale each had 6 saves in goal. The Hornets host Amesbury on April 11 and North Reading on April 14.
The sailing Hornets had three one-on-one team races with three Mass Bay League teams this past week. On Tuesday, April 5 the team travelled to Wellesley to race against last year’s MBL Champions. In the unfamiliar and fluky lake conditions, we won the first race, but lost the next two races. On Wednesday, April 6 the Hornets hosted St. John’s Prep and easily dispatched our guests in three races, finishing with the perfect “1, 2, 3” in most of the races. In the low point scoring system, that means six points for us, versus 15 for SJP. On Thursday April 7 they travelled up to Gloucester Harbor to take on the very well-coached sailors who had finished second last year in the MBL. We won the first and last of the five-race series, but Gloucester won the middle three for the victory.
On Saturday, April 9 the team travelled to Lake Massapoag in Sharon for a Quad team racing meet against Martha’s Vineyard, Sharon and Rogers School. In very windy conditions, with many boats capsizing and having difficulty keeping control, we fared poorly against the older, heavier and more experienced sailors on the other teams. It was an exhausting and discouraging series of races for us. However…. on Sunday, four sore and extremely tired sailors boarded the bus at 8 a.m. for the hour drive back south to Sharon, to race against 17 other very competitive Mass Bay teams. Our sailors must have had some sort of revelation overnight, because the results they put down in competition were a total surprise to them and to their coach. The conditions were not quite as breezy as the day before, but were still windy, requiring lots of physical hiking and bailing to keep the boats upright and dry. Anna Brzezinski and Lucia Logue-Perron, in the hyper-competitive A Division, managed to put down a race record that kept us in the top half of the fleet. However, Ian Carlin and Matthew Graeter pulled off an astonishing feat. In only his fifth race as a Varsity sailor, Ian laid down a race record of three firsts, two seconds, one third and a tenth. This is an extremely impressive performance for someone racing for the first time in a major competition, and it moved us up into second place for the entire event. We got back on the bus to Manchester with trophies for second in B Division, and second overall.
