Sophomores Falk, Goyette Named Athletes of the Week

There is no doubt that lacrosse and softball are team games.

 

But one player in each game gets W’s and L’s after his or her name on the stat sheet.

 

This week, a pair of sophomores racked up far more of the former than the latter.

 

Mount Greylock boys lacrosse goalie David Falk went 3-0, and McCann Tech pitcher Megan Goyette went 4-1 to earn this week’s Athlete of the Week honors.

 

Goyette battled a sore elbow to take the ball for five games in five days and push the Hornets to the brink of a Western Mass tournament berth as they ended the week on a three-game winning streak to improve to 8-3 this spring.

 

“I allow [catcher Alanza Quinones] to call the game,” McCann Tech coach Robin Finnegan said after Thursday’s win over league-leading Easthampton. “She and Megan call the game themselves. I trust them enough to do that. She's got a number of different pitches, and she knows what she's comfortable with.”

 

The battery of Goyette and senior Quiniones has an ERA of 2.28 and has struck out 83 hitters in 80 innings of work.

 

Goyette has three shutouts this spring, including Monday’s 12-0 win over Lee, a team that beat McCann Tech in South County on a day when she was unavailable due to academic commitments.

 

Mount Greylock’s Falk does not have any shutouts -- which are exceedingly rare in lacrosse -- but he has done everything but for the 13-0 Mounties.

 

Stepping into the very big shoes of graduated keeper Cal Filson, Falk has 104 saves on 168 shots this season, a 61.5 save percentage that is higher than all but one goalkeeper in the NCAA Division I collegiate national rankings.

 

This week, Falk and the Mounties’ defense held two different opponents to three goals in a 3-0 week.

 

That week included a 15-3 win over Mount Anthony Union, which played a much closer, 12-9, game against the Mounties the first time around, and a 10-3 win over Northampton, which entered the game ranked in the top 10 in Western Mass by the Springfield Republican’s website.

 

“This game really meant a lot to the team,” Falk said. “It was probably our hardest game of the year so far. We prepared for it for about a week, scouting them and trying to figure out their weaknesses. There was a lot of emotion surrounding it.”