WORTON — Kent County High School’s girls lacrosse team is in an unfamiliar position, and that’s a good thing.
KCHS closed out the regular season with a 17-0 blowout victory at Wicomico High School in Salisbury on April 30 to pin down the top seed and home field in the Class 1A East Region II tournament.
“I am still in a bit of shock. I have checked the official standings about 3 times tonight just to make sure it is actually real,” coach Aly McDonald told The Evening Enterprise in a text message several hours after the win at WiHi.
The all-underclassman Trojans improved to 6-6, the most wins in a single season since the 6-9 campaign of 2018 and more wins than the previous three seasons combined.
They have scored in every game this year — something they hadn’t done since 2021 — and averaged a respectable 8.33 goals a game.
KCHS recorded its first shutout win of the season at WiHi, where low defender Tess Fuchs and international student Abi Lachance scored their first career goals.
This was a game where offensive and defensive players swapped roles in an attempt to level the playing field, so to speak.
The only constant was freshman Lyric Frase, who played the entire game in the cage. She is new to lacrosse and played mostly on defense until two weeks ago when she was pressed into duty full time after the starting goalie suffered a season-ending injury that is not lacrosse related.
In the rout at WiHi, freshman attacker Allee Hall netted a hat trick to lead balanced scoring. Fuchs, Liza Loller, Jane Cleary and Clare Gerstung each contributed two goals, while Lachance, Grace Gerstung, Taylor Strong, Abby Gallo, Mary Jane Joiner and Hailey Myers each contributed one goal.
While the official draw for the regional tournaments is tomorrow, it appears that KCHS nosed out Southern of Anne Arundel (5-7) for the No. 1 seed in the 1A East Region II. Bohemia Manor, Cambridge-South Dorchester and North Dorchester each had only two wins, and fill out the remainder of the bracket.
Tournament play begins May 7 with the two lowest seeds facing off — North Dorchester, which is fielding its first-ever girls lacrosse team, traveling to county rival Cambridge-SD.
Kent County on May 9 will host the winner of the play-in game in one region semifinal, while No. 2 seed Southern will host No. 3 seed Bo Manor in the other semifinal.
The championship game is May 12 at the higher seed.
How’s it feel to be No. 1?
“I am so proud of the team and their resilience,” McDonald said in the April 30 text message.
“We played some tough games this year and they have not lost their positivity once,” she said, noting that KCHS was able to bounce back from lopsided losses to superpowers like Queen Anne’s (11-1) and Kent Island (10-2) to pull off an upset against Parkside.
“They took something from each game and applied those lessons to the next game,” McDonald said.
Kent County’s first-year head coach said if she thinks too much about where the Trojans are now, where they were at this juncture in the season last year and the growth they have demonstrated — on and off the field — she gets emotional.
“I have never worked with a group of athletes that have worked so well together as a team,” McDonald said. “They truly play with one heart and I think that has been one of the largest parts that has led us to securing the No. 1 seed.”
