Avery Valicenti leading young Archies girls lax team to big wins
BRAINTREE – The Archbishop Williams High girls lacrosse program has added a lot of new faces since last year, but one of their new faces has been playing the game since kindergarten.
Freshman Avery Valicenti plays attack for the Bishops and has become the team's leading scorer this season with 40 goals through 14 games. The Weymouth resident comes from a family of players with both her sisters and her dad having played lacrosse in high school.
Monday night's 20-10 win over St. Mary’s (Lynn) was just another showcase of her offensive talent as Valicenti once again led the Bishops in scoring with eight goals.
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“Avery was on fire,” said Archies coach CeCi Hodgkins. “She’s been a huge asset to us this whole year in terms of her goal-scoring, but she’s also been a big feeder for us, too, helping out other big goals to happen. But when she has the ball she’s a serious threat.”
Hodgkins is in her first year as head coach for Archies, taking over for Gordie McClay. Now she has a roster with no juniors, three seniors, and 15 underclassmen. But with a 10-4 record after beating the Spartans, she’s pleased with what she’s seen from the young players.
“Everything’s been really smooth this year,” said Hodgkins. “I helped out Gordie McClay the past two years and he set the foundation for a really strong program 17 years ago. So it seems like a really seamless transition. The girls bought in from the very beginning and were hardworking.”
Clare O’Keefe, a sophomore from Whitman, is the second leading scorer for Archies with 26 goals on the season. She had five against St. Mary’s. She and Valicenti have a connection on the offensive side.
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“She’s so good," Valicenti said of O’Keefe. "I look up to her. She’s like my older sister."
The three seniors on the Archies squad don’t quite get the same publicity, but the love they receive from their teammates makes up for it. At the end of the game, senior midfielder Abigail Dunn, of Quincy, scored the final goal on a wraparound. When the ball went in the net, her teammates rejoiced as if it was the game-winning goal – jumping, screaming and hugging one another.
Valicenti, along with the other underclassmen on the team, love their seniors.
“They look up to them tremendously,” said Hodgkins. “Caroline (Hurley), Abby and Maggie (Madaio) are our three seniors and all of them play important individual roles on the team as leaders on and off the field.”
“It’s fun, like a really heartwarming thing, because we’re all so close, we’re like a family,” Valicenti said of Dunn's goal celebration. “I think when we all get excited and hyped, we all play better and it brings us all closer.”
Other Bishops to score were Braintree's Caroline Batchelder (three), Weymouth's Molly Madaio, Quincy's Shea Nolan and Quincy's Kate O’Toole.
St. Mary’s jumped out to a 4-1 lead early in the game, but a 7-0 run gave Archies the lead and they never looked back. Having so many young players on the team comes with its ups and downs, but Hodgkins knew it was a big Catholic Central league game they needed for momentum.
Having lost in the round of 16 to Sandwich last year, and having graduated key seniors, Hodgkins understands how important each win is.
“That was a big win for us,” said Hodgkins. “We played them earlier in the season (Archies won 14-6). We played well, but we knew there was more potential. Today we came out strong and just continued the momentum through the whole game until the end.”
This article originally appeared on The Patriot Ledger: Archbishop Williams girls lacrosse beats St. Mary's, 20-10
