Sports Recap: Winchester Lacrosse Relied on Senior Leadership

Winchester was disappointed when a ended its boys lacrosse season in the Division 2 East quarterfinals, but it did show how far the Sachems had come. Hingham had defeated Winchester 14-6 in April to drop the Sachems' record to 2-4 before Winchester came back to win 12 of its next 13 games.

With only five seniors and a long stretch of road games to begin the season, Winchester got off to a slow start, but the youngsters matured quickly.

"Honestly we had some incredible assistant coaches who were very
patient and we made a conscious effort to distribute the playing
time," coach John Pirani said. "It was a double-edged sword — it held
us back in early season games, but as the season unfolded and right
toward the middle of the season those kids really started to mesh."

Winchester scored nine goals in a season-opening win against Weymouth, but scored just nine goals combined in its next three games, losses to Lexington, Newton North and Wellesley.

The Sachems avenged last year's first-round playoff loss to North
Andover with a 6-5 win, but then lost to Hingham to drop its record to
2-4.

Winchester finally played its first home game in a , and evened its record with an 11-9 win over Wakefield in
which the Sachems overcame an 8-5 halftime deficit.

"We've been through a real tough patch, but now we're back home,"
Pirani said. "We're only five weeks in, and we can definitely get
better."

Sure enough, the Sachems went on a seven-game winning streak, including a in which the winning goal was scored by sophomore Chris O'Connell. The Sachems also won three games during the streak in which it allowed its opponents to score two goals or fewer.

The run hit seven in a row when Winchester scored four unanswered
goals to . The Sachems shut out Woburn in the second half behind four saves from goalie Alex Sharp and a strong defensive effort led by Danny Donovan and Peter Troiano. But the string was finally snapped against Lexington. Tyler Calnan tied the game in the final minute before the Minutemen scored with seven seconds left.

Still, Winchester won its last two regular-season games, breaking a
5-5 tie in the fourth quarter of the regular-season finale against
, to enter the
Division 2 East tournament as the No. 6 seed with a 12-5 record.

Ed Dorr scored the first four goals in the playoff opener, a , and then Jesse Samek scored the winner in
overtime on an assist by Brandon Kelley as the in the next round.

Kelley scored three times against No. 3 Hingham in the quarterfinals,
but the Harborman scored with 1:44 remaining to advance.

The Sachems return their goalie, three of their top four attackman and six of the seven midfielders next season.

"The seniors that we had were great leaders and you never dismiss the contributions those kids made," Pirani said. "We feel like we have a real good foundation for next year but an awful lot depends on how
hard they work in the offseason."