Greg Levinsky
In mid-December, Belmont High School sophomore Niamh Lesnik asked to meet with assistant principal and girls’ lacrosse coach Dan O’Brien. The wide-ranging discussion of individual and team goals resulted in a poignant message from the coach to the star player.
Lesnik was coming off a standout freshman campaign in which she tallied 60 points. The message relayed from the second-year coach to the rising sophomore midfielder went something along these lines: the Belmont girls lacrosse team will go as far as the 16-year-old will take them. Lofty expectations? Yes, but the 5-foot-7 Lesnik has delivered, amassing 72 goals and 13 assists through the first 16 games of the season for the Marauders (9-5).
“Coach puts pressure on me to play my best and that helps me to perform my best and how I want to in the games,” Lesnik said. “That was the motivation for me to step up even as a sophomore. Honestly, the biggest part of it is my coaches and teammates encouraging me.”
Lesnik, who also plays midfield and defense for Belmont’s varsity field hockey team, started playing lacrosse in first grade with the Belmont Youth Lacrosse program. She joined her club team, Laxachusettes, in third grade. Around that time, Lesnik began attending some camps run by local colleges. After watching her cousins play at Yale and Tufts, she set her longer-term goal of playing Division I lacrosse.
“Just hearing players talk about their experience about playing at college made me realize this was something I want,” Lesnik said. “They talked about how it was just such a fun bond they built with their teammates and how much they loved playing the game.”
Her arrival to the high school lacrosse ranks came with little fanfare, save for some general rumblings O’Brien heard from those around the town’s youth program. Lesnik looked the part of a future star from the jump, displaying top-notch athleticism and the ability to play with both hands buoyed by a lacrosse acumen far beyond her then-freshman years.
Lesnik netted a hat-trick in her varsity lacrosse debut and followed with three more goals and an assist in her second game and a four-goal performance in the third game. Her first real test came against perennial Middlesex League powerhouse Winchester and an individual matchup with Division I Boston University-bound senior midfielder Tessa Geddes.
Though the Marauders fell in double-overtime, Lesnik produced four goals and an assist.
“You could see that she has all the tools right from the get-go, but that game… the fact that she ran with a conference player of the year, that’s when I started to recognize, like, OK, this is a girl we can build our team around,” O’Brien said.
Lesnik totaled 53 goals and 7 assists as a freshman for the Marauders, who finished with a program-best 13-5 record in the regular season and won a home preliminary round game in the MIAA Division I tournament, the program’s first postseason appearance since 2019. She netted three-plus goals 10 times as a freshman and scored in all but one of the Marauders’ 20 games last year. Lesnik also played alongside her sister, Stella, a team captain last year.
BHS senior captain Tess Desantis played in the same club program as the Lesniks. She called Lesnik “the ideal teammate.” Liable to run end-to-end as a quarter runs out for one more chance to score, Lesnik is “that person that always gives 100%,” Desantis said.
“She brings a sense of urgency and is always working really hard, hustling and giving it her all,” Desantis said.
This spring, some opponents implemented defenses designed to stop Lesnik, primarily with face-guarding. Other teams make similar in-game adjustments once she starts scoring. The added pressure hasn’t impacted her too much.
“From my perspective, she’s very grounded and fun-loving,” O’Brien said. “She’s just got this big, bubbly personality, like super-kid.”
After last year’s program turnaround, the Marauders hope to return to the postseason for the second straight year as they navigate a much stronger schedule than last year. Ranked No. 13 in the MIAA Division I Girls Lacrosse Power Rankings as of May 8, Belmont needs a top-32 spot ranking or winning record if ranked 33 or below to qualify for the tournament.
“It’s just working hard for each other and setting each other up for success,” Lesnik said. “The message that we want to send to the other teams in the league is that we’re going to make the tournament and be competitive so that other teams take us more seriously in that type of way.”
