Bulldogs pummel Pirates on senior night

In the dwindling minutes of Flagler Palm Coast girls lacrosse’s senior night match against rival Matanzas, the Bulldogs’ Sarah Murphy, who played defense her entire career at FPC, was given the opportunity to play on offense.

With fewer than 5 minutes remaining in the game, Murphy bolted toward the Pirates’ goal. She flung the ball — hard — and it slipped past the Pirates’ goal keeper and hit the back of the net.

It was the first goal of her career.

“If I could do a backflip,” Murphy said, “I would have.”

Four seniors played their final regular season game at Sal Campanella Memorial Stadium on the night of Thursday, March 21. Murphy, Moriah Duprat, Mariann Trecki and Heather Marino all contributed to the Bulldogs’ 18-1 victory over the Pirates.

Marino led the Bulldogs with four goals and two assists. Trecki added two goals and an assist of her own. Duprat, a defender, was the only senior to not score.

The Pirates scored their only goal in the first 36 seconds of the game. From there, the Bulldogs took over. They scored their first goal at the 23:22-mark in the first half and went into the locker room at halftime with a comfortable 10-1 lead.

“We executed our plan, and that’s what I wanted to happen,” FPC head coach Katie Kastner said. “I didn’t necessarily want to run up the score. I wanted to run plays. I wanted to make sure they were successful. I wanted to run our defense a certain way. So I was pleased with that. We did a lot of good things, but there’s also a lot we can improve on.”

Part of their success, according to Trecki, is the chemistry they’ve been able to form on the field.

“We have really good team work, and we’ve struggled with that in the past,” Trecki said. “Lately, we’ve really been meshing really well. Today, we were on it.”

It was also the seniors’ first-ever win over the Pirates.

“It’s really warming to us to be able to go out and beat them by so much on senior night,” Trecki said. “It was our one last ride.”