Senior Caitlyn Camelio scored 61 goals and had 18 assists in leading Falmouth to its second straight Class A state title. Shawn Patrick Ouellette/Staff Photographer
Caitlyn Camelio’s mom doesn’t have the greatest eyesight, so picking out her daughter from among all the other blond-haired girls playing lacrosse for Falmouth High proved problematic.
Until she bought Caitlyn a stretchy pink headband. That was last spring, when Falmouth embarked on its first state championship season.
“Things were going so well,” Camelio said, “that I was like, ‘I can’t not wear it.’ I am THE most superstitious person.”
So now, after a second straight Class A state title, Camelio has at least four pink headbands in her lacrosse bag, another two to three in her bathroom, one in her kitchen, and one in her car.
“They’re scattered all over,” she said. “It’s kind of a team joke.”
Camelio, of course, needs no accoutrement to stand out on a lacrosse field. With her fleet feet, quick stick and ability to shoot from either wing, she scored 61 goals this spring and assisted on 18. The University of Michigan recruited her to play Division I lacrosse.
For the second year in a row, she is our choice as Varsity Maine Player of the Year for girls’ lacrosse.
“Regardless of what opposing coaches knew about the girl in the pink headband,” said Falmouth Coach Ashley Pullen, “it was hard to shut her down.”
Over her high school career, Camelio finished with 135 goals, 46 assists and 147 draw controls. She earned All-America honors this spring from US Lacrosse.
“She has the whole package,” said Kennebunk Coach Annie Barker. “She’s skilled, she’s versatile, she’s fast and she understands the game well.”
Not much about Camelio’s first two seasons of high school lacrosse hinted at how dominant she would become. Sydney Bell and Devon Sarazin were the Falmouth stars bound for college programs, Trinity and Roger Williams, respectively.
As a sophomore, Camelio was coming back from a torn ACL she suffered on a soccer field. Part of her rehab involved spending hours on a swivel chair in her basement, with music blasting and her dad keeping her company. She sat between a pitchback screen and a lacrosse net, throwing a ball against the screen, catching the rebound, pivoting and shooting on the net.
“If I missed, it would make a loud noise,” she said. “My left hand got so much better from all that repetition.”
Camelio played soccer until her sophomore year and ran indoor track each winter. She placed sixth in the 200-meter dash at the Class A state meet and was a member of the 800 relay that placed first in 2018 and second in 2019.
Two cousins who are avid lacrosse players from Duxbury, Massachusetts, encouraged Camelio to try out for their Mass Elite club team, which practices and plays in summer and fall in Canton, a drive of almost three hours from Falmouth.
Exposure to a faster, more skilled level of lacrosse proved beneficial for Camelio, who accepted a substantial scholarship offer from Michigan after visiting Ann Arbor over a winter weekend.
She also put the Michigan connection to good use early this season, constructing an official-looking email with fellow seniors Jo Stucker and Natalie Birkel purportedly from a Wolverines assistant coach, and forwarded it to Pullen. The message requested that, because of an injury to Michigan’s backup goalie, Camelio spend the rest of her spring playing in goal.
“Of course it came on April Fools’ Day,” Pullen said. “But I wasn’t thinking of that the first time or two I read it.”
With Camelio, it’s all part of a package wrapped in a bright pink bow.
“She has this very natural zeal for life that bubbles up whenever she’s speaking with anyone,” Pullen said.
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