Girls Lacrosse at Malden High has an extremely young team this year, but that does not mean the team is not ready to compete for a spot in the state tournament this year.
Last year, perhaps the biggest story of the season was star midfielder, sophomore Makenzie Jenkins broke the record for goals scored in a season for a freshman, scoring 55 goals. Jenkins professed, “I hope to reach 100 goals by the end of this season, the all-time record is 110 for a career, by the end of mine I hope to be at 200.” There is much confidence in Jenkins to reach her goal, as last year she picked apart defenses and scored left and right.
While looking back on last season, one of the team’s captains, Abigail Morrison recognized that the team is “missing some older girls because we only have one senior. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but it means in future seasons we will have a lot of seniors graduating at once.”
On the contrary, Coach Devon Pattershall is very optimistic about the young team, saying, “Right now, we have a large number of amazing girls playing this year, with only one senior, which allows for a lot of growth of the team and players skills.” Pattershall later went on to explain, “In the past few years we have at times struggled with numbers.” However, this has changed with the team this year, Pattershall noted: “The influx of new players also helps with bringing new energy to the team in a positive way, it seems like it was just what we needed this year.”
Sophomore Jeslyn San also noted another aspect of the team which has changed since last year, “The team is missing a strong chemistry between us right now. As time goes on and the season progresses, I am sure that chemistry will begin to strengthen.” Makenzie Jenkins explained that she believes the team “needs some more confidence; I know we are very capable but we just need to be able to execute on the field.”
The First Year Head Coach Devon Pattershall enunciated, “What we are missing most from last year would probably be our returning goalie that we have had for the past few years. She stepped away from the field this year but is helping us in a team manager role instead. We are still so happy she’s a part of the team regardless of if she is on or off the field.” As the team looks to fill some holes like the one at goalie, they will depend on girls stepping up and learning new positions by stepping out of their comfort zones to better the team.
Makenzie Jenkins believes the team’s chemistry is great, claiming, “We have so much fun together and we treat practices like games. I really love that about the team this year.”
Jenkins hopes this year to push the team to “Take responsibility outside of practice to further our own personal skills and where we each need improvement that is so crucial for a team to do well, everyone needs to put in their part.”
Jeslyn San elaborated that “The team has had great communication out there, everyone is comfortable with each other, but in order to do as well as we want, we need to coordinate better.”
Captain Abigail Morrison individually hopes to improve herself in the aspects of the game which are newer to her this year. Morrison explained, “I need to work on my offense because I mainly focused on defense in past season, but as a team, we just need to focus on the basics.”
First-year Pattershall, is eager for her first season as head coach, noting “So far I feel I have been doing pretty well in my first year as a head coach especially given I don’t have an assistant coach at the moment. We have a lot of rebuilding to do as a team this year and I feel that the team expects me to help in leading that change by example.”
Pattershall also helps to work with the complexities that come with coaching in an area like Malden. She elaborated, “Another key piece I think they expect from me is the level of understanding that coaching in an urban district like Malden brings different challenges and dynamics that these student-athletes face. Being a part of this team for the past five years as well as being a teacher in the district for that time has been a huge help.” She hopes to create a “positive, supportive, and fun environment for the girls to be involved in.”
Looking forward to the team’s first game against Revere, Pattershall looked at the team on both sides of the field, explaining “You can have the best skills but if you aren’t communicating with your team you will have breakdowns happening. On the defensive end, they have to communicate who they are covering, who is covering the ball carrier, when switches are happening, and when they need to crash on the ball.” On the attacking end, she elaborated “Offense needs to make sure to communicate the plays they are making, calling out when we need to settle the ball, and returning offense players need to help communicate and guide the new players when to cut and shift if they are struggling.”
Overall, Pattershall described the team as being “Really amazing so far this year! I am so lucky to be coaching such a great group of girls. Sometimes you can have cliques form and have people feeling left out, especially players new to the sport, but this year everyone has been really inclusive of everyone.”
The team will have two more games following the Revere game on 4/10. They will face Sommerville on 4/11 at home and after that, on 4/14 against Whittier Regional Voc Tech at home at Pine Banks.
