Generals Fall To North Reading, Knocked From Tournament

There were many factors that meant the boys' lacrosse Div. 3 East Sectional quarterfinal matchup was tightly called on Monday - a third referee was on the field as an extra set of eyes, there was tournament survival at stake and one of the teams was used to hitting hard and often.

The Hamilton-Wenham Generals came out and showed the home team - North Reading Hornets - their tough style of play, but it resulted in many ill-timed penalties. That allowed the quick Hornets to find the open man on many occasions, resulting in a 10-6 victory and date with Dover-Sherborn in the semifinals on Thursday.

“We wanted to come out hard, but of course all those fouls hurt (us),” said Hamilton-Wenham senior Sam Martinez. “This was a tough way to end the season.”

But it wasn’t only the visitors who tried to exert their dominance with a rough style. Fourth-seeded North Reading, which is not used to playing that hard, equaled the fifth-seeded Generals, hit for hit and penalty for penalty.

“That was probably the first time this year we had three guys in the penalty box (at the same time),” said North Reading junior midfielder Cody Carbone, who led his team with three goals. “The coach always says to us to be more physical during practice, and today we were.”

The Hornets started slowly – finding themselves down 3-0 midway through the first quarter – but were able to chip away and finally tie the game, 4-4, when junior midfielder Eric Valenti took a pass from Bill Sexton and scored 22 seconds into the second half. They scored two more times by the midway point of the quarter to cap a 5-0 run, turning a three-goal deficit into a lead they wouldn’t relinquish.

“The penalties hurt us,” said Generals coach Jim LaSelva. “(North Reading) is a team you need to score a lot of goals against, and we didn’t do that today."

North Reading coach Chuck Campobasso didn’t like the recent trend of falling behind early, but he, nor his team, didn’t panic.

“We were down (4-0) to Hanover (in the first round), so I had no doubt we could come back,” he said. “It was just a question if we would.”

Junior midfielder Eliott Burr led the Generals with three goals, with sophomore Eddie Frick, junior Matt Putur and junior Chris Valletti netting one goal each.

“(North Reading) playing well and us not to our potential was the combination that led to our demise,” said LaSelva.

Hamilton-Wenham got to within a goal at 6-5 but goals by Carbone and Sexton 1:30 apart gave the Hornets their first three-goal lead, with 1:36 remaining in the third quarter. Purtur cut his team’s deficit to two, but the hosts scored the final two goals of the game – Sexton’s second and Carbone’s third.

“I felt (the kids) turned it around and played much, much better in the second half,” Campobasso said. “The third quarter was huge for us.”

North Reading’s defense also came up big in the final quarter, yielding only one tally. When senior goalie Andrew Burns wasn’t stonewalling shots that got through, defensemen Chris Schipelliti, Thomas Potter, Neal Rooney and Conor Murname closed the door on any possible comeback.

The Hornets got single goals from Nathan Seed, Michael O’Brien, Valenti, Dylan Poor and Anthony Lytle.

Hamilton-Wenham goalie Luke Drieze was busy, making many saves in the first half to keep his team ahead.