Boys Lacrosse Takes First Round in OT Thriller

The No. 14 seed Wolverines won their preliminary round matchup in the Division 3 East Tournament Tuesday evening in dramatic fashion, overcoming a five-goal halftime deficit to defeat No. 19  Georgetown in overtime, 9-8.

Westwood Senior Casey McQuillan put in the last goal of regulation and the game winner in OT for the Wolverines punching their ticket to No. 3 Cohasset on Thursday. 

Westwood saw itself trailing 7-2 at the break thanks to lack of defense and sloppy transitions. Georgetown took advantage early off a Wolverine miscue and scored their second goal after a ball was mishandled by the midfield. Westwood head coach Todd Zahurak talked about his team’s first-half struggles and lack of ball movement.

“There was no transition, that was the difficult thing,” Zahurak said. “We were just throwing the ball away and being sloppy and lazy and just sort of being there without doing anything.”

As for the Westwood first-half offense, it struggled mightily to find creases throughout the unorthodox 3-3 zone run by Georgetown. The Wolverines were forced to take long shots and their uncontested opportunities were limited.

“It’s not a defense we see a lot in our league, so it took a little while to adjust to it,” Zahurak said. “It’s just a rotation that you have to get through and once you get through that rotation and start trusting the guy behind you, suddenly everything opens up for you.”

The second half was all about moving the ball for the Wolverines, as they finally fought their way through the Georgetown zone. The midfield stepped up and played with a new-found intensity; in particular Conor Murphy, who put in two third-quarter goals to complete a hat trick.

McQuillan talked about the adjustments his team made to counter the zone.

“We had a lot of practice playing against the zone and if you look at the tape, we had three or four goals that were the exact same thing; one guy cuts through to tear up the zone," McQuillan said. "In the second half we just knew what we were doing and systematically we just tore them apart.”

Westwood narrowed the gap to 7-5 after the third quarter with huge help from the defense, which didn’t allow a single shot on goal.

“In the first half, we didn’t really know who we were playing, we didn’t know much about Georgetown and in the second half we settled in realized what they were running and we just stepped up,” said defensive captain Dave Von Euw. “I think when they got up a few goals our heads kind of dropped a little bit, but at halftime we turned it around and realized what was at stake and we wanted to play another game.”

Added Zahurak, “I wish I knew what I said to them at halftime. There was no magic formula, it was just those guys deciding this wasn’t going to be their last game.”

Westwood carried its momentum into the fourth quarter, when the team scored the first two goals to tie the score at seven. Immediately following Mike Keane’s tying goal, Georgetown called timeout and came out firing 40 seconds later with their first shot and goal of the half. McQuillan came right back and evened things up a minute and a half later, as he snuck his second goal of the game just right of Georgetown goalie JoJo Mangano to force overtime.

McQuillan wasted no time in sudden death overtime as it took him just 53 seconds to put in what almost looked like an identical goal to the previous one past Mangano once again.

McQuillan was mobbed by his teammates, whom he says did all the work today and gave him the ball at the right time. He talked about how sweet the goal was after a long journey of a season.

“It felt good but it was a real team effort. We were out here March 21st against Andover in 11-degree weather and we practiced yesterday in 90 degree weather, so we’ve been everywhere,” he said.

The other goal scorers for Westwood included Sean Condrick in the second quarter and Christian Heidelberger in between Murphy’s two in the third quarter.

Chris Annis replaced Pat Masi-Phelps in net midway through the second quarter and allowed just one goal the rest of the way.

Westwood, the No. 14 seed, will travel to No. 3 Cohasset for their next round matchup on Thursday.