Steve Morano
MSMU Class of 2024
(4/2024) At the end of the 2023 Metro Atlantic Athletic Association, the Mount St. Mary’s lacrosse team finished sixth in the conference standings. This was the team’s first ever season in the MAAC after coming to the conference with a season full of successes in 2022. In their last season in the Northeast Conference, women’s lacrosse was crowned conference playoff champions in a 15-13 win against Bryant and booked themselves a spot in the NCAA women’s lacrosse tournament. Even though they lost in the first round to No. 6 Loyola, the Mountaineers proved their worth. But where does that experience stand two years on from an appearance in the National Tournament?
In 2023, the Mountaineers entered a tough lacrosse conference in the MAAC, and no matter what the team looked like on the field, it was always going to be a tough step up for coach Lauren Skellchock and her players, as it was for the rest of the teams at the Mount. But the team persisted, as they reached the quarterfinals of the conference playoffs, eventually losing out to Niagara. To show how tough the conference was last year, you must look to the eventual champion, Fairfield’s, record. The Stags had an overall record of 14-5 and a conference record of 7-1, eventually overpowering Siena in the championship by a score of 17-4.
As it stands, the Mount has a record of 2-5, with their wins coming from a 14-8 away win against Bucknell on March 3rd and a 15-6 win against Robert Morris on March 12th in Emmitsburg. The rest of their games have come down to close losses that could have swung either way, with their largest margin of defeat belonging to an 18-9 lose to No. 17 Navy on February 21st. With all the defeats aside and if last season accounts for anything, the Mount is in an optimistic place for success.
A team is nothing without its players and coaches, and the Mountaineers are more then up to the task of success in that department. The head coach, Skellchock, is a veteran of Mount lacrosse, that is a testament to her 10 years in charge of the program. In her tenure at the helm of the team, she has tallied an overall record of 80-66 and a conference record from both the NEC and the MAAC of 44-18. In that time, she has led the team to two NEC conference titles and in verse, two appearances in the NCAA Tournament. She has also taken the team to two conference semifinals, a conference quarterfinal, and a separate NEC final in 2019. Skellchock is also a graduate of Johns Hopkins University and was an integral part to their dominance in NCAA women’s lacrosse.
On the other side of the coaches box on the field is associate head coach, Samantha Pratt. The UMBC graduated has been alongside Skellchock since the beginning of the 2018 season and was an integral part of the teams who went to the National Tournament. This corps group of coaches is what made the team so successful over the past couple seasons, including runs in the postseason.
The group of players assembled over the past by the coaching staff over the last years has been nothing but integral to their high scoring style of play. Three players make up nearly half of the goals this year scored alone. Those players being senior, Mackenzi Furlong with 18 goals, junior, Anna Salerno with 17 goals and junior, Madison Harmening with 12 goals. Those three have 47 of the teams’ 81 goals scored during the season so far, with a further 8 players contributing the remaining 34 goals.
In the lead up to a goal, the Mountaineers have dominated in assisting, with 21 assists spread out amongst the team. Furlong, who leads the team in goals, also leads the team in assists with eight. That is followed by four assists from senior, Abby Yesko and three from senior, Christina Haspert who has three assists. The small number of assists in contrast to the number of goals means that the team has a very headlong strategy on goals. They are not likely to pass that much in the crease and are more suited to fast breakaways on a turnover.
Related to turnover, on the defensive side of the field, the Mount is well equipped to force the opposing team to make a mistake or take the ball away from them. They have created 109 turnovers against the opposition while turning it over themselves only 111 times. This is remarkable to take into consideration, especially when more than three quarters of these turnovers have turned into goals themselves. Haspert leads the team with 12 turnovers across seven games and Yesko has 11 across eight games. Furlong, Harmening, Salerno and sophomore, Hailey Chester are all behind the two upperclassmen in turnovers with 10 apiece.
The team also has a young corps of players that could turn into something special for Skellchock and Pratt in the future. First years Olivia Nelson and Camille Thomas seem to have gotten the most playing time out of any of the rookies Skellchock’ s team so far this season, as Thomas herself has played in goal four times for the team so far this season. Another player to make an impact for the team this season is Shannon McTavish, who has played in six games so far for the Mount this season.
In her 10th year in charge of the team, Coach Skellchock will go into an even tougher conference, with the former Top 2 seeds in Fairfield and Siena looking more poised than ever to continue their dominance. The Mount will play Quinnipiac, Canisius, Rider and Siena away. And in turn will welcome Niagara, Fairfield, Manhattan Marist to Emmitsburg. With MAAC play to start on March 23rd against Iona at home, the Mount will kick off their battle for their first ever conference title in their sophomore year in the MAAC.
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