Boys Lax Falls to Medfield in MIAA Div. 2 East Final

No matter the outcome, the Concord-Carlisle High School boys lacrosse team was ending its season on Tuesday night at Harvard Stadium in the MIAA Division 2 East Final, playing No. 9 Medfield High School. But the question was, would C-C come out victorious?

The No. 2 Patriots, the team that beat North Andover 8-2 in the first round, Sandwich 8-7 in the quarterfinals and Hingham 10-9 in triple overtime in the semifinals, finished its season as the sectional runner-up, with an 11-5 loss to Medfield at Harvard Stadium in Cambridge.

“They beat us at what we’ve been doing well all year, so I give them credit and they were good,” said CCHS coach Tom Dalicandro.“They were a good offensive team. They’d just been playing really great and they were the better team today.”

Concord-Carlisle’s offense struggled to maintain the ball as its defense struggled to contain Medfield.

The Patriots led only once in the game, after senior Matt Carroll scored on Medfield senior captain and goalkeeper Sam Aronson at 4:13 in the opening quarter to put the Patriots ahead 1-0.

But Medfield took control and charged back with five unanswered goals on C-C junior goalkeeper Doug Gouchoe.

Medfield senior Ben Mastrogiovanni tied it 1-all at 3:04, then senior captain Peter Gill (1:56) and junior Connor Roddy (12 seconds) finished off the first quarter, edging the Patriots 3-1.

To start the second quarter, Roddy scored at 9:20 off a C-C turnover, and, at 7:57, freshman Matthew Crowell put Medfield ahead 5-1 with a Roddy assist.

Concord-Carlisle had been overthrowing passes, frequently losing the ball and allowing Medfield to scoop ground balls, but after Medfield racked up goals, the Patriots came back with an offensive outburst of its own.

Carroll scored a leaping goal in front of the net at 6:46, junior Mike O’Brien hammered home a shot from the right wing at 5:35 and junior Jackson Finigan added the team’s fourth goal with 2:43 remaining until halftime.

“I thought after … it was 5-1 and we came back to cut it to 5-4 that we had great position,” Dalicandro said. “We cut it to one and I really felt good at halftime.”

But Concord-Carlisle repeated its misfortunes at the start of the second half that plagued them in the first. Medfield beat C-C for most of the faceoffs and groundballs.

“Faceoffs and groundballs are huge,” Dalicandro said. “They just beat us in the wing and they beat us to groundballs. They were good.”

Medfield was so good that again they tallied a string of unanswered goals – four to be exact.

Roddy passed to senior Calvin Given at 8:30 in the third for a goal from the left wing. The ball just snuck inside the right side of the net rolling over the line before Gouchoe could block it.

Junior Chris Diana added Medfield’s next two goals, Medfield’s seventh from the left wing at 4:27 and the eighth with five seconds remaining with help from Crowell after three previous Medfield shot attempts hit the pipes.

Gill scored at 5:30 in the fourth for the ninth goal and Crowell made it a 10-4 game as he rushed the net for the quick shot.

“Doug saw a lot of rubber,” Dalicandro said. “He had a lot of shots. I thought he played well, they just got too many chances on him.”

C-C was pretty down on itself at this point in the game, but the Patriots added a fifth goal with 3:08 left when Finigan made a low sweeping shot from the right wing after an assist from the left by senior Seth Bird, who returned to the lineup after missing significant time with an injury.

“I thought Seth played great,” Dalicandro said. “Played so hard, he was really happy, gave us a boost (and) he really killed himself to be out there.”

C-C’s final efforts weren’t enough, as Medfield came back just as quick at 2:44 drilling the final goal of the game. Junior David Parsons scored Medfield’s 11th goal with Roddy making his third assist of the night.

“It was a great season,” Dalicandro said. “The guys did a great regular season, great tournament run and guys played hurt (and) guys stepped in for guys that were hurt. It wasn’t meant to be.”