Nantucket Current Sports

06/11/2025

The boys lacrosse team lost to the top-seeded Cohasset Skippers Wednesday afternoon in the MIAA Div. 4 Boys Lacrosse State Semifinal. The Whalers, who are the reigning Div. 4 state champions, were tied with Cohasset 1-1 after one quarter before the Skippers took their game to another level and pulled away from Nantucket.

Jake Johnson and Arann Hanlon scored goals for Nantucket. The Whalers will be returning nearly all of their players next season and should be in line for another excellent season next spring led by a strong senior class.

With the Whaler’s loss, that puts a wrap on the 2025 spring season, which was quite successful with three teams (boys lax, girls lax, and girls tennis) all making the state quarterfinals. The boys tennis team made it to the Sweet 16 after an upset victory over the Rockland Bulldogs in the first round.

Thank you to all who have followed along all year long as the Current continues to bring you coverage of Whaler sports. We will see you in August!

Photos by Chris Tran

06/11/2025

Girls Lax Makes Jami Lower Proud In Final Season As Head Coach

By David Creed

You can’t tell the story of how lacrosse has produced some of the most talented athletes on the island in recent years without mentioning Jami Lower. Lower founded the youth lacrosse program in 2012 and took over as the girl's varsity head coach in 2019. The program, which finished its first season with Lower at the helm with a 10-11 record, has steadily grown into one Div. 4’s most consistent teams and one of the best sports programs at Nantucket High School.

But after racking up an 89-29 record over the course of six seasons (lost year in 2020 due to COVID), four state quarterfinal appearances and one state semifinal appearance, Lower’s coaching career came to an end last week following her team’s 20-3 defeat to top-seeded Cohasset High School in the MIAA Div. 4 state quarterfinal, as she announced before the season that 2025 would be her last.

"I think this program has a ton of potential," Lower said of the team moving forward. "I think the girls just need to keep the energy up and keep working hard because I know they can do it. You look at some of the people on the roster and I hate, like, it makes me sad to leave them behind, but there's never a good time to exit. You always want to wait for this class to graduate and that class to graduate. It's not something that I've taken lightly, and it's tough to kind of walk away. But I just hope they know that they have the potential and they're going to do great things.”

Full Story 👇

Nantucket Current is the island's leading online news source. We deliver the news, stories, and people of Nantucket, unbiased and unfiltered.

06/11/2025

Girls Tennis Concludes Historic Season

By David Creed

The girls tennis program continues to grow and develop under the leadership of head coach Luke Thornewill and assistant head coach Mark Gerardi, and this past weekend their historic season came to an end in the form of a 5-0 loss to Lynnfield, the top seed in the Div. 4 tournament, on the road in the state quarterfinal.

This was the first time the girls tennis team reached the state quarterfinal, and Thornewill couldn’t be more pleased with how his players competed all season long.

“Today we didn’t lose… We had our highest season power ranking ever and we finished #8 in the state tournament and made school history,” Thornewill told his team after Sunday’s match. “And through the season we had a blast. What a journey it has been! As for getting beat by the number one seed (Sunday)…. You all played your hearts out and left it all on the courts and we can ask for no more.”

Full Story 👇

Nantucket Current is the island's leading online news source. We deliver the news, stories, and people of Nantucket, unbiased and unfiltered.

06/09/2025

Boys Lacrosse State Semifinal set.

#4 Nantucket vs #1 Cohasset

Wednesday, June 11th at 4 p.m.

Neutral site location: Barnstable High School

06/08/2025

For a second consecutive season, the Nantucket boys lacrosse team has advanced to the Div. 4 state semifinal. The Whalers, who are the defending state champions, are the fourth seed in the bracket and will be playing top-seeded Cohasset at a neutral site with the date and time of the game to be determined.

The Whalers had to earn every blade of grass on Sunday in what was one of the more physical games of the season. The teams were tied 4-4 at halftime, but Nantucket was able to ride some lockdown defense led by Canton Jenkinson, Nick and Ben Yates, Soren Edwardes, and Paxton Fitch that held the Tigers to one goal in the second half, as well as four second half goals from their star goalscorer - Arann Hanlon - to pull away from a tough Ipswich team.

Nantucket head coach Sam Aloisi said he felt Sunday’s game was as good of a team effort as his squad has had all spring and was impressed with the offense’s composure down the stretch.

More to come on today’s game in tomorrow’s newsletter. Photos by Chris Tran

06/08/2025

Final:

#4 Nantucket 8
#5 Ipswich 5

Whalers advance to the state semifinal for a second consecutive year and will play #1 Cohasset. Date and time TBD.

06/06/2025

The girls lacrosse team’s season came to an end Friday afternoon against top-seeded Cohasset in the state quarterfinal game.

So much to be proud of, and so much growth and improvement from the beginning of the season to the end for this group.

Great season girls! You make the island proud!

06/05/2025

Arann Hanlon was simply unstoppable Thursday afternoon as the #4 seeded Nantucket Whalers hosted #13 Sandwich in a rematch of last year’s Div. 4 boys lacrosse state title game. Hanlon helped Nantucket win the matchup 11-7 by scoring five goals and two assists.

Nantucket will now move onto the state quarterfinal where they will host #5 Ipswich this weekend. Date and time to be determined.

Photos by Chris Tran! Full story to come tonight!

06/05/2025

FINAL:
#4 Nantucket 11
#13 Sandwich 7

Whaler boys lacrosse advances to the State Quarterfinal and win the rematch of last year’s state championship.

Great game! Arann Hanlon five goals and two assists

06/05/2025

STORY: Girls Tennis Reaches First Ever State Quarterfinal

By David Creed

The Nantucket girls tennis team breezed past their Sweet 16 opponent, the Advanced Math & Science Academy Eagles, Wednesday afternoon in an historic 5-0 victory for the program as they punched their ticket to the program’s first ever Div. 4 state quarterfinal.

Senior Elis Vieth was Nantucket’s first singles player and won her match in straight sets 6-0, 6-4. Vieth said after the match that her first set was really good as she dominated and essentially waited out her opponent to make mistakes.

“I was down 0 to 4 (in the second set) and then came back to win six games in a row for the final score of the second set to be 6 to 4,” Vieth said. “I’m really happy with myself for being able to come back like that. I’m also really proud of the team as all our matches were pretty close and we managed to have a clean sweep, making history for our Tennis program.”

Full story 👇

Nantucket Current is the island's leading online news source. We deliver the news, stories, and people of Nantucket, unbiased and unfiltered.

06/05/2025

The Nantucket girls tennis team breezed past their Sweet 16 opponent, the Advanced Math & Science Academy Eagles, Wednesday afternoon in an historic 5-0 victory for the program as they punched their ticket to the program’s first ever Div. 4 state quarterfinal on the same day the girls lacrosse team completed a thrilling 7-6 overtime victory over Manchester Essex to advance to their own state quarterfinal.

Senior Elis Vieth was Nantucket’s first singles player and won her match in straight sets 6-0, 6-4. Vieth said after the match that her first set was really good as she dominated and essentially waited out her opponent to make mistakes.

“I was down 0 to 4 (in the second set) and then came back to win six games in a row for the final score of the second set to be 6 to 4,” Vieth said. “I’m really happy with myself for being able to come back like that. I’m also really proud of the team as all our matches were pretty close and we managed to have a clean sweep, making history for our Tennis program.”

Girls lacrosse head coach Jami Lower said after the game that she couldn’t have been more proud of her team’s effort.

“That’s what they can do. That’s what you can do when you have a team that can work together and they all believe in themselves,” Whaler head coach Jami Lower said. “That was just exactly what happened (in the final play)... a save from Ella (Douglas, goalie), a ground ball from I think it was Alex (Wisentaner) to Myah (Johnson) to running it up to pass to Grace (Hanlon). I mean, I’m so proud of them. They played 100 percent.”

Photos taken by Chris Tran from both girls tennis and girls lacrosse yesterday are included in this post.

Full stories on nantucketcurrent.com

06/05/2025

Damian’s OT Goal Sends Girls Lax To Fourth Straight State Quarterfinal

* A story on the girls tennis team and their win on Wednesday that sent them to the state quarterfinal will be published tomorrow*

Nantucket Current is the island's leading online news source. We deliver the news, stories, and people of Nantucket, unbiased and unfiltered.