A Title Fight

For most of the game, no one could score. Then all of a sudden, everyone could score. When all was said and done, the  boys’ lacrosse team walked away with a 5-4 victory over Avon, and the North Central Connecticut Conference tournament title.

“It was one of those things where both teams were playing great defensively, both goalies were hot and both teams were getting looks,” Somers coach Ken McCarthy said. “We just figured that it was a matter of time before the goals started to go. Once you break the drought, they tend to go.”

After a scoreless first quarter, someone finally got on the board when Somers’ Neil Cardwell put one in the net with 9:03 left in the second quarter.

The score would remain that way at the half, but with 4:47 remaining in the third quarter, the Spartans added another goal when Mike Hanna found the net. Hanna also had an assist in the victory.

For McCarthy, that was the big goal for Somers.

“I think the second goal was really key for us,” he said. “I think it was huge for us to get that second goal because it had been so hard to score and we got the first two. And then to get the third and the fourth – it was big for us.”

In the fourth quarter, goals by Alex Geas, Matt Garcia, and Donny Whittle gave Somers a more comfortable lead, but Avon came storming back.

In the span of one minute and 10 seconds, Avon’s Kurtis Skelley scored three goals and Colin Moore scored one to pull the Falcons within one goal. Avon held the ball for the last shot, but with a few seconds remaining, lost the ball. Somers cleared it away from the goal and began celebrating the championship.

“It’s a good thing we had a five goal lead at the time because we needed it,” McCarthy said. “We didn’t expect to have to hang on the way we did. Give Avon a lot of credit. They fought back and they didn’t give up. They have a lot to be proud of too because they could have easily, when they were down by a bunch, packed it in. That’s what we were kinda hoping to do really, was open the floodgates. But to their credit they held on and made us work for everything.”

Somers had played the game penalty free, but in that final quarter, penalties came back to haunt the Spartans.

“We just had a couple penalties,” McCarthy said. “Maybe the kids start to get tired, we start to have lapses mentally. We played penalty-free until the fourth quarter and then they scored on man-up twice I think and they scored in transition. We were on our heels and they got some confidence. All game they had a hard time scoring but once they got started, their confidence started to grow.”

McCarthy was pleased with the way his team played and got its lead.

“The fact that we had built a lead, we worked really hard to get that five goal lead,” he said. “We chipped away, we earned every one of those goals and it paid off for us in the end. For the most part, we kept our penalties down, that’s what we wanted to focus on. We wanted to win the ground balls, we did that.”

He continued, “We wanted to take smart shots. We told them that anytime you put the ball in the goalie’s stick it’s a turnover. We didn’t do that that much today, maybe a couple times, we let him have some easy saves. The goalie made some great saves, but he had to work for them. Our kids stepped up. We had a game plan and the kids stepped up and followed it and we won the game.”

Avon goalie Cameron Dowd made 10 saves while Somers goalie Dan Bell made 12 saves.

Zach Thresher added two assists for Somers (18-0). Moore and Michael Porter had assists for Avon (12-6).

Somers had played Avon twice this season, defeating the Falcons 11-7 and 12-6, but those easy victories don’t mean much at this point in the season.

“A championship game, you throw everything out,” McCarthy said. “It doesn’t make a difference. It doesn’t matter who we play in the NCCC. If you’re playing a championship game, it’s going to be a great game.”

While some coaches may have been upset with such a close game, McCarthy saw the positive in it.

“This is good for us to have a one-goal game because most of our games this year we’ve had big leads and we haven’t been put in an adverse position where we need to either come back or hang on,” he said. “So going through this, now our kids I think have confidence and we can draw back on this experience and say, ‘We know how to hang on.’”

It helped the Spartans get ready for the tournament in another way too.

“We were looking forward to this game because we wanted to play a good team, on turf, under the lights – because if we make it past our first game, it’s going to be a final four game, and we’re going to play a good team on turf,” McCarthy said. “So we got what we asked for – a good team on turf. Hopefully this will help us out.”

Somers will now get a bit of rest and work on some things before taking on the winner of No. 8 Old Saybrook versus No. 9 Waterford in the  state tournament.