Miller Boys Lax Improves to 4-1

The Millburn boys lacrosse team has been scoring goals in bunches this season, and they continued that trend with a dominant offensive performance on Wednesday afternoon, in a 17-7 drubbing of Arthur L. Johnson at Dr. Keith A. Neigel Field.

“I’m very proud of the boys,” said Millburn first year head coach Bill McCutcheon. “We’ve game planned every week for the teams we’re going to see, we’ve executed, we’re still making some mistakes that we want to take care of on the field. But as far as the execution, the attitude and the energy, we’re all on board, and we’re all there and I’m very, very proud of their effort.”

Led by four goals and two assists by Mark Funk and four scores and one assist from Nathan Weinrauch, the locals put on an offensive clinic at home, pretty much scoring at will. Millburn, which dominated possession, took 43 shots on goal, compared to 25 for Johnson.

Ben Cebula got things started for the Millers when he took his man, one-on-one across the field and flung in a 10-yarder, less than two minutes into the game. Johnson’s Brandon Feeney tied the game 23 seconds later, but Millburn’s defense held them scoreless for the next 11:29 of play, while the offense went off for eight more goals in the opening quarter.

Following Johnson’s first goal, Michael Adelman won the groundball off of the draw and found Funk for his first goal of the game, right in front of the net, with 8:02 left in the first. Cebula then added his second and Brian Baker got into the action with 6:05 left in the first quarter, getting the assist from Weinrauch.

With 4:50 in the period, Funk took the ball from behind the net and wrapped around for a goal, putting the boys up 5-1. Weinrauch then scored less than 20 seconds later, and with 3:34 left in the period, Tyler Alexander scooped up a groundball put it home, giving Millburn a 7-1 advantage.

Weinrauch and Funk scored the final two goals of the first quarter, and pretty much put the game out of reach, with the locals up 9-1.

“We’ve put a lot of focus in our preseason and our practices on shooting, shooting, shooting, controlling the ball, running an up-tempo type of an offense and basically just dominating individual one-on-one match-ups,” McCutcheon said.

Johnson showed some fight in the second quarter, getting two goals from Nick Mullery, one from Dean Delvecchio and another from Jo Jo Francisco. But Millburn matched them goal for goal, getting scores from Funk, Alexander, Weinrauch and Cebula, to go to the break up 13-5.

To start the third quarter, Weinrauch scored within the first 48 seconds, faking out Johnson’s keeper to find an opening. With 8:39 in the third, CJ Francisco brought Johnson within eight goals. But with less than two minutes left in the third, Millburn's Matt Soloway scooped up a groundball and went coast-to-coast for the score, rifling one in from about 10 yards out. With 27.6 seconds left, Funk delivered a knockout punch, firing in a bullet to put Millburn up 16-6 headed to the fourth quarter. Each team added a cosmetic goal in the final period.

The two big themes in Millburn’s win was groundball dominance and one-on-one ability from the Miller scorers.

Eleven of Millburn’s goals were unassisted, and simply came down to Millburn’s player being able to get past the defense pretty much anytime they wanted.

“As far as players that we have that can dominate individual match-ups, it’s going to be tough for other teams to guard us,” McCutcheon said. “I’ve told these boys that it’s about time for people around here to start respecting us and now I hope they do.”

Millburn picked up 37 groundballs compared to just 21 for Johnson. The Millers were led by Adelman, who had a game high 10 groundballs and pretty much controlled the draws for Millburn throughout.

“I can’t even say that we do a lot of drills that practice that, I just think it’s more of an individual focus that ‘I want that groundball,’” McCutcheon said. “Michael Adelman is a very talented long pole, I put him up there with some of the top guys in the state. …he’s the kind of guy who is not going to not get a groundball, he’s going to get every groundball.”

The win was the third consecutive victory for Millburn and improved their record to 4-1 overall, while Johnson dropped to 1-5. The 17 goals scored marks the highest total for any Millburn team since April 18, 2009, when the locals put up 18 against Blair Academy. The 32 goals scored by the Millers over the last two games, is the most for any two game stretch since before the 2005 season.

Millburn is in action again on Thursday April 21 at Columbia High School.

“This is the team to watch out for,” McCutcheon said. “We’ve got a long way to go and a long road ahead of us as far as our conference and other games that we have to play. But I’m confident in our team’s ability, the sky is the limit for these kids.”