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09/06/2018 12:00 AMThe North Branford girls’ lacrosse team put together a special spring season in 2018, thanks in large part to an offensive attack that was unmatched in the Shoreline Conference. One of the key cogs in that attack was recent graduate MacKenzie MacGowan, who elevated her game to a new level during her final season with the T-Birds.
MacKenzie attributes a lot of her success to the experience she gained by joining a club team. In her senior year, MacKenzie scored 40 goals to go with 22 assists on her way to earning All-Shoreline Conference and All-State Second Team honors for North Branford. She also received the Most Improved Player Over Four Years Award from the Thunderbirds.
“Playing club really made me fall in love with lacrosse and really helped me improve my skills. Then I just brought it to the field my senior year,” says MacKenzie. “I was very aggressive. I just wanted to get the ball all the time. I wanted to help my friends score.”
Head Coach Lori Connelly says that MacKenzie was a huge asset when she had the ball in her possession. Connelly loved watching MacKenzie make her way toward the opposing goal to create scoring opportunities for North Branford.
“MacKenzie was a big part of our offense this year. She was the best offensive driver on the team,” Connelly says. “She always worked hard in practice and games. She was always smiling and a great teammate to all.”
MacKenzie also played soccer at North Branford and helped her team win the Shoreline Conference Tournament last fall, prior to doing the same with the lacrosse squad during the spring. MacKenzie brought an attacking mentality to the field for both of her teams.
“I think [driving] is a good skill for me. It came from soccer. I always went to goal, because going from defense to attack, I can dribble, so I brought it to lacrosse knowing to keep going as far as I can,” MacKenzie says. “My foot skills are very fast, so attacking is something I’ve always done.”
While MacKenzie wasn’t a captain in lacrosse, she was still relied upon as one of the T-Birds’ leaders. MacKenzie felt proud about how everyone on her team rallied together to make 2018 a banner year in North Branford.
“We were really good. We had a lot of team bonding, which made us even closer,” she says. “Us all being friends made us comfortable on the field, because we weren’t afraid to pass it to anyone.”
MacKenzie’s favorite moments from her senior year came when her teams won their respective Shoreline titles, while gaining a measure of redemption in the process. North Branford’s girls’ soccer and girls’ lacrosse squads were both crowned conference champions after beating Old Lyme, which had defeated the T-Birds in each of those tournaments the previous season.
“It felt really good, because Old Lyme was a big rival to us. In both sports, we made it to the Shoreline Conference final last year and lost both times,” MacKenzie says. “This year, we won both, so that made me feel so good about our team. It felt really good.”
When MacKenzie entered North Branford High School, she thought that soccer was her best sport. However, MacKenzie also made her mark on the lacrosse field and, four years later, she’s attending Keene State College in New Hampshire to continue playing that sport.
“I visited Keene and fell in love with the school. I didn’t initially talk to [Head Coach Kathleen Clark], but when I emailed her, she said she had already seen some film and was very interested in me, so it just went from there. Now, I’m here,” says MacKenzie. “I’m just looking forward to meeting the girls and having a good run like we did in high school. I hope to play some as a freshman and see where it goes. Hopefully, I continue to do good.”