C-C Boys Lax Earns Hard-Fought Tourney Win

Nothing has come easy for the boys lacrosse team. Not the one-loss regular season it recorded without the help of three key contributors for varying amounts of time and certainly not the No. 2 seed it earned in the MIAA East Division 2 sectional tournament.

And nothing changed in the Patriots’ Quarterfinal bout with No. 7 Sandwich High School on Tuesday afternoon. C-C had to scratch and claw for everything against the plucky Blue Knights, but was able to pull off an 8-7 victor at Doug White Memorial Field.

“It was a great win,” C-C coach Tom Dalicandro said. “(Sandwich) is a good team. It could have gone either way, so it’s a good win for the program.”

The victory earned the Patriots (18-1) a third straight trip to the sectional semifinals. Their previous two trips ended in a win and a loss over Medfield High School. This year, C-C will face either No. 3 Hingham High School or No. 6 Winchester High School.

If one thing is certain, it’s that getting back to the sectional final, where C-C lost to Walpole in 2009, won’t be easy. But that’s nothing new for this Patriots squad.

Seniors Cole Fisher, Ben Lesser and Seth Bird, a tri-captain, have all missed varying amounts of time this season. Bird was the latest victim, going down late in the regular season after serving as the leader of the Patriots offense.

And the injury bug bit C-C again on Tuesday, as senior tri-captain and defenseman Michael Anastos went down in the first quarter. That forced fellow senior Ryan Robinson to move from attack to defense for the remainder of the game against Sandwich (16-5).

Losing Anastos for a prolonged length of time could really hurt C-C, as the longstick was recently selected as an Eastern Massachusetts All-American by the state’s coaches.

At least against Sandwich, as they seemed to always do, the Patriots made due with what they had and fought through the setback.

“It hasn’t been really easy for us all year,” Dalicandro said. “We have great working group of kids that just want to win really bad.”

Everything the game was earned by both sides, whether it were transition opportunities, faceoffs, groundballs or goals. Each team had recorded four of the later when each retreated to the shadows for a respite from the 85-degree temperatures at halftime.

Concord-Carlisle midfielder Charlie Painter started the scoring, Sandwich’s Brendan Calderia tied the game at 1-apiece with 8 minutes, 10 seconds to play in the first quarter.

Two straight goals by the Patriots made it 3-1 in favor of the home team with 1:36 to play. The scores were tallied by senior attackman Matt Carroll and junior attackman Mike O’Brien.

But Sandwich wouldn’t let up and added two goals of its own in the final minute and a half of the first period to knot the game at 3-all to start the second.

One goal aside was scored in the second period to keep the game tied at the half, 4-4. O’Brien scored his second of the game with just less than 6 minutes remaining. He is one of those Patriots that has stepped up, Dalicandro said.

“Mike O’Brien played attack today because of all the injuries and did a great job,” he said.

The third period belonged to the Patriots, as they took what seemed to be a commanding 7-4 lead when the buzzer sounded. Junior attackman Jackson Finigan, another middie transplant, sandwiched a pair of goals around one for junior midfielder Kevin Delehey.

“I thought at 7-4 it was going to be over and we’d pull away, but they just hung on and didn’t quit,” Dalicandro said.

He should’ve known that would just be too easy for this Patriots team. Sandwich got right back in the game with three straight goals of their own to tie the game with 7:12 remaining. The first came on a two-man advantage and the second two were defensive lapses by the Patriots.

Sandwich’s Devin Green brought his team within one by beating C-C defenseman Henry Bumpus 1-on-1, and Brad Collin tied the game at 7-all with a rocket of a shot from far out on the periphery of the restraining box.

Finigan’s third score of the afternoon ensured the Patriots’ defensive lapses weren’t their undoing. With just less than 5 minutes remaining, Finigan curled from the back of the net on the right side and beat goalie Nick Darzenta with an underhanded shot.

“I thought it was anybody’s game,” Sandwich coach Mike McNeill said. “I told our kids coming in, and it stayed true right to the end, the team that makes the fewer mistakes today is going to come out on top.”

Junior Doug Gouchoe started and got most of the playing time in goal for the Patriots, but Steven Saul was forced to come in twice when Gouchoe was sent to the penalty box. Gouchoe was flagged for an unsportsmanlike penalty and a slash.