LHS Boys' Lax Establishes Early Dominance Over Watertown

Lexington High School’s boys lacrosse team wasted little time in flexing its muscles against Watertown High School on Tuesday afternoon.

Visiting LHS jumped in front of the Raiders with three quick goals on successive possessions less than 5 minutes into their game at Hosmer Field. The Minutemen didn’t stop there, and led wire-to-wire in notching an 11-4 victory that wasn’t even that close.

The Minutemen (7-2), perennial contenders in the Middlesex League and Division 1 postseason, wanted to show the Raiders (1-6), in their first year as a varsity squad, who was in control early on. Lexington scored a total of four goals in the first quarter, while barely allowing the opposition to control the ball at all.

“We just wanted to take care of business and get a league win and try to move forward and get some different guys some playing time,” Lexington coach Dave Walsh said. “It’s nice to be able to do that.”

As if there was any doubt, the Minutemen’s early flurry quickly demonstrated which of the programs was well established and which is just getting started.

“I think we needed to try to establish ourselves as the team that was going to go after the win right away,” Walsh said. “I didn’t want these guys to come out and take the wrong approach. I wanted them to get after the win right away.”

Midfielder Conor Henrie (one goal, one assist) sparked Lexington with the game’s first goal. He took a feed from teammate David Nardella (two goals, one assist), an attackman, and beat Watertown goalie Justin Pelliter low.

After winning the subsequent faceoff, Lexington scored again the next time down the field. This time, attackman Anrdew Mazur was left alone in the middle of the restraining box. He took a pass from middie Ben Silberman, turned and scored the first of his three goals on the afternoon.

Yet again, the Minutemen won the faceoff and, yet again, added to their lead on the ensuing possession. Nardella made it three-for-three for LHS, and put Watertown in a sizable 3-0 hole before the home team could catch its breath.

“Unfortunately, that’s something we’ve had to fight through a good amount this year,” Watertown coach Chris Burns, who called a timeout after the third goal, said. “At halftime I thought we regrouped and kind of made them work a little bit during their offensive possessions.”

Both sides settled in after the flurry, but the Minutemen added their fourth goal late in the period when midfielder Noah Hurley assisted on Mazur’s second goal. It was very similar to Mazur’s first goal, as he took the pass in the middle of the restraining box and got off a quick shot.

Mazur added his third goal of the game in the second period and Nardella added his second as Lexington went ahead 6-0 at halftime.

At that point, Walsh said he took the opportunity to go deep into his bench. The coach liked what he saw from the reserves, as Lexington added five more goals after the break.

It scored two goals in the third period, from third-line midfielder Shannon Chaulet and reserve attackman Jason Huang. Three third-period Lexington goals came from reserve attackman Matt Mazur, who scored two, and first-line attackman Eli Brick.

“I saw some good stuff from some of the younger guys,” Walsh said. “A lot of these guys have been playing a lot with the JVs, so I saw (today) what they are able to do. They took some nice looks, they hustle and I thought we had great effort.”

Burns was also proud of the way his team performed late in the game. Beside the lopsided score, the Raiders continued battling and finally broke through in the first quarter against Keith Young, Lexington’s No. 2 goaltender. He replaced starter Shane Foley (three saves) in the fourth quarter.

Three Raiders chipped in to score Watertowns four goals in the fourth. Attackman Dino Flori scored two, including his team’s first of the game midway through the quarter. Fellow attackman Mike Busconi added Watertown’s second just before Flori added the Raiders’ third.

Matt Johnson capped the game’s scoring when he beat Young with just 2 seconds remaining on the clock.

“They work hard, it’s just getting used to working hard at the varsity level,” Burns said. “We’re not quite up to that speed just yet. We’re just waiting for it to click. We know they have the ability. We’ve seen it in spurts.”

Lexington plays the third game of its four-game roadtrip at Reading Memorial High School on Friday. The Minutemen then travel to Billerica Memorial on Tuesday before returning home to face Exeter (N.H.) High School on May 6.