Massabesic senior Skylar Renaud looks for a crease against a Thornton Academy defender during the Mustangs 13-2 win over the Golden Trojans to open the girls’ lacrosse season on April 24. Renaud graduates with the Massabesic High Class of 2019 on Thursday. COURTESY PHOTO/Dawson Renaud

WATERBORO — Skylar Renaud sits on the other side of a small, square table in a room just off of the front office at the Massabesic East building near the high school.

The senior, who graduates magna cum laude with the Massabesic High School Class of 2019 on Thursday at the Cross Insurance Arena in Portland, is composed, charismatic and doesn’t hesitate when asked what her favorite part about being a Mustang has been over these last four years.

“I love lacrosse,” Skylar said. “It’s been a really big part of who I am.”

Skylar, 17, started playing lacrosse in the seventh-grade and, in the fall, she heads to Southern New Hampshire University to play the sport on scholarship. Before then – today at 3:30 p.m. to be exact – Skylar and the Massabesic girls’ lacrosse team will fight for a berth in the state championship in a regional semifinal against Kennebunk.

The Mustangs won a state title in 2017, Skylar’s sophomore season, against the Messalonskee Eagles. What made the championship even sweeter was that the prior year it was the Eagles that knocked Skylar and the Mustangs out of the playoffs.

“It was insane,” Skylar said. “Our whole motto going into that year was ‘unfinished business.’ That whole year we worked to beat them. We worked so hard that it was awesome.”

Hard work and dedication are nothing new to Skylar. As a senior, she participated in the Massabesic Leadership Academy, a program designed to foster strong leadership skills in youth. A three-sport athlete throughout high school, she was named the MVP of both the girls’ soccer and basketball teams. She also earned SMAA First All-Conference Team both junior and senior years and the SMAA Second All-Conference Team as a sophomore.

Skylar’s varsity lacrosse coach, Brooks Bowen, nominated her for the Maine National Team, a collection of some of the best lacrosse players in the state who play over Memorial Day weekend in Long Island, New York. The first time Skylar tried out, her sophomore year, she didn’t make the team. So, what did she do? She worked hard and earned a spot the following season.

“It’s what a parent wishes for: the best for their kid,” said Liane Renaud, Skylar’s mother and a Massabesic alum. “When you have her working as hard as she does, you can’t beat it. I’m super proud of her and blessed that she is the girl who she is.”

Skylar acknowledges that she wouldn’t be in the position she is now if it weren’t for her mom and dad, Leon Renaud. It was her parents who started her in sports at the age of 4 because they thought it would help steer their daughter “down the right path.” It was her parents who made sure she and her brother, Dawson Renaud, got to all their practices and games. And it was her parents who helped her through a difficult stretch when she broke her foot her junior year before soccer season in the fall, which forced her to miss basketball season in the winter, and lost her aunt, Betsy Carbone Delano, to cancer.

“She was completely devastated. The first couple days were really, really tough,” Liane said. “But, we have faith in our family and we knew this happened for a reason … it just made her grow stronger as a person.”

Skylar plans to major in business administration with a minor in sports management at Southern New Hampshire. Her current career goal is to become an athletic director so she can bring her own children to the games.

None of her classmates will attend Southern New Hampshire University this fall, and that’s okay with Skylar. Her athletic coaches have “done an amazing job” at making her step out of her comfort zone over the years.

She knows she not the loudest, she said, but Massabesic has taught her to be bold, show confidence and don’t sit back while others do work for you.

“I’m excited to go meet new people, but I’m sad to leave all the people who I have here,” Skylar said. “(College) is going to be fun. We’re getting ready to separate and go on to our next step.”