McDonogh girls' lacrosse team sets new national standard for consecutive victories
Owings Mills (Md.) McDonogh School left little doubt about the greatest girls' lacrosse program in history.
The Eagles surpassed the nation's longest winning streak with a trio of victories over the weekend, according to The Baltimore Sun. McDonogh has not lost in more than five years, winning its record 104th straight game with an 18-10 victory against St. Paul's Girls. The record is now 106 and counting.
"With the record breaking, I feel like it's just icing on the cake now since the pressure's off," UMBC-bound All-American senior attack and midfielder Miranda McCoy told the paper. "But we just want to keep playing our game and really not think about how many games we can win. We want to take one game at a time and try to keep the records out of our minds."
The previous national record was held by a pair of Maryland schools with 103 straight victories. Towson's Loch Raven reached that mark from 1973-82, and Ellicott City's Mt. Hebron matched it from 2001-07. Remarkably, current McDonogh coach Chris Robinson held the same position at Mt. Hebron during the first year of its streak.
While the old records were certainly impressive, the skyrocketing number of prep girls' lacrosse players and teams today make McDonogh's streak all the more remarkable. And it's not like the Eagles are playing cupcakes every week. They consistently face the country's elite, including a season-opening tournament against a trio of nationally ranked teams to start this season.
"Every team that we see has six or seven Division I players," Robinson told The Sun, "and some teams, like (Notre Dame Prep), have 15 of them. We haven't been a team that's dodged any competition. We've played the best from New York and Pennsylvania, Virginia, Florida and Georgia, wherever. Over the last five years, we've played everybody we could get on our schedule and fit in by league rules, so it's been kind amazing we've been able to (win 103 straight) with the competition we've played.
"There's not really any (top) team out there that we haven't played at some point."
The last team to defeat McDonogh? Canandaigua (N.Y.) Academy on April 11, 2009. The only question left to ask: When, if ever, will the Eagles ever lose again?
(h/t MaxPreps)
