Athlete Of The Week: Emery Cappallo

HARWICH – The Monomoy field hockey team deployed a balanced offensive attack Monday, what with six different players scoring goals for the 10-0 win against St. Paul Diocesan in the first round of the MIAA Div. 4 state tournament. 

Even so, junior Emery Cappallo managed to stuff the stat sheet in what was, by some measures, Monomoy’s most dominant game of the season. Cappallo put in four goals and an assist to power the No. 1 seed Sharks against the No. 32 Knights. 

Cappallo opened the scoring with a liner from the middle of the circle at the 8-minute mark of the first quarter. She followed that up with Monomoy’s second goal a few minutes later, a ball she ripped chest-high from the left side.

In the second quarter, Cappallo assisted on a score by senior Lauren Henderson, then added her third later before the half ended. The final touch was a goal in the third quarter assisted by sophomore Sophie Larivee. 

Freshman Mia Zimmerman scored twice, and senior Sam Clarke, junior Kate Huse and sophomore Mason Swett had a goal apiece. Junior Sage Harrison also had an assist, and sophomore Maddy Swett delivered the shutout in goal.

The Sharks took more than a dozen penalty corners while allowing none to the Knights, who came from Worcester for the round of 32 match.

“I feel like we've definitely put a lot of time into practicing on corners a lot, and free hits were definitely, I think, a big part of my scoring opportunities, so that definitely helped — just working outside the circle,” Cappallo said. 

The win opened what Monomoy (12-5-1) surely hopes is a deep run atop the playoff tournament bracket. Despite losing more regular-season games this year than in the last two combined, the Sharks claimed the first overall seed on the back of their absolute crucible of a schedule. Monomoy finished as the only team in the division with an opponent rating above 2.0, as determined by the MIAA’s power rankings. 

Meanwhile, St. Paul Diocesan (8-5-3) was the lowest-rated team the Sharks had seen all year. Monomoy next hosted No. 16 Lunenburg (12-0-4) on Wednesday in the second round (after The Chronicle’s deadline). 

“We were coming into this confident, so that was nice,” Cappallo said. “It's nice to get this one out of the way and we're on to the next one, so we're feeling confident about that too, which is good.”

Their 10 goals against the Knights bested a previous season high of nine goals tallied Oct. 16 against Martha’s Vineyard. With the shutout, the Sharks similarly exceeded their previous season-best margin of victory, also recorded against Martha’s Vineyard. That all came despite thick, heavy rain pouring throughout the entire tournament match.

“I think our team is definitely even more locked in in terms of playing when it comes to tournament, because we know this is a bigger deal to us,” Cappallo said. “Like we really do want to make it all the way, and we know we can, and we're really trying to do our best with that.”