Mountie Milestones Highlight Win at Wahconah
DALTON, Mass. – Sometimes you can measure success by the numbers.
Sometimes, you have to see it with your eyes.
There were a lot of big numbers for the Mount Greylock girls lacrosse team on Thursday night at rival Wahconah.
Sarah Polumbo scored her 100th career goal, and Christy Rech registered her 200th career save as the Mounties earned a 10-5 win and improved to 11-2 with their sixth straight win.
Wahconah, which has just two seniors on the roster, lost its second straight to slip to 5-5 this spring.
But don’t tell Wahconah coach Kathy Budaj that it was not a successful night for her young squad.
“Greylock’s tough,” she said. “They’ve got some quality players. … For us to be able to play them the way we did with the amount of new players that we have out on the field, I’m impressed.
“The girls played phenomenally. I couldn’t have asked any one of them to play any harder.”
Wahconah battled back from a 5-0 deficit with eight minutes left in the first half to play the Mounties even the rest of the way, drawing within three goals on three occasions in the second half.
Mount Greylock got that early five-goal lead with the momentum created by the day’s first milestone, a Polumbo goal in the fifth minute that prompted Mounties coach Jeff Stripp to call timeout for a brief photo opportunity with the junior and her teammates.
“Going into this, we kind of knew that was going to happen,” Polumbo said. “Because it was on the first [goal], I kind of wanted to get it quick so it gave our team a ton of energy and we were super excited and pumped up.
“And we also knew that Christy Rech was most likely going to reach her 200 saves. So every time she made a save, we counted up. … As she kept making more, the energy kept growing and growing.”
The energy from Polumbo’s celebration led to a goal off her ensuing draw win just 11 seconds after the timeout when she set up Phoebe Hughes, who made it 2-0.
Less than two minutes later, Lucy McWeeny found the back of the net.
Then Ainsley Abel scored the first two of her four goals back-to-back to give Mount Greylock a 5-0 lead with 7 minutes, 54 seconds left in the first half.
Claire Naef got the hosts on the board in the 24th minute, and Eva Eberwein started the second half with a Wahconah goal 53 seconds after the break to make it a three-goal margin.
Then Rech, who had four first-half saves, made her second of the second half for No. 200 of her career, and Mount Greylock had another chance to celebrate.
After the pause, Abel scored again, setting a pattern of Mount Greylock answers to make sure the lead never dipped below a three-goal advantage.
Naef had four goals for Wahconah.
McWeeny and Tess Leveque each scored a pair for Mount Greylock.
Polumbo, who came into the night averaging more than six goals per game, scored just goal No. 100 in the opening minutes.
But she had no complaints, happily playing the facilitator and savoring a win over her team’s top rival.
“They are going to be super pumped and trying to beat us on our home turf,” Polumbo said of the rematch scheduled for Monday in Williamstown. “I feel like we’re going to come into that game even more prepared.”
Mount Greylock gets a tune-up on Saturday afternoon at Lee.
Wahconah goes to Bennington, Vt., to face Mount Anthony on Saturday.