Marple Newtown Lacrosse Loses to Aggressive Springfield Team

NEWTOWN SQUARE–The sun was still blindingly bright at the onset of Tuesday night's lacrosse game between and Springfield, but it turned out to be a dark patch for the Tigers' season.

"Springfield-Delco is a good team and we knew that going into the game," said David Jones, who is in his first year as head coach. "I admire that the coaches over there consistently develop disciplined teams year after year. Tonight was just not our night and we made a number of mental errors."

The scoring started for Springfield just 90 seconds into the game, and before five minutes had been played, the Tigers found themselves down 3-0. Springfield's attackers charged through the orange and black time and again, and Marple Newtown had difficulty generating any offense in the early stages of the game.

After the third goal, when the blinding sun was obscured by a cloud cover halfway through the first quarter, there was sudden improvement in the Tigers' game, and they mounted some good offensive pressure as well as tightened up their defense, stemming Springfield's scoring onslaught for the time being.

Marple Newtown seemed to be on the verge of turning things around when a bad giveaway in their own end led to a Springfield player running in on net virtually uncontested to make it 4-0. The real gut punch came at the end of the quarter, when, with just 4.2 seconds on the clock, one Springfield player brought the ball into play from the right corner of the field into the Tiger's end, ran right up to the goal and potted a goal just as the horn blew, making it 5-0.

The Tigers played tighter defense in the second quarter, but were still too tentative on their attack, letting Springfield limit them to the periphery of the offensive zone and behind the net.

"Offensively, we had some trouble moving off-ball," said Jones, "but when we did get things going we had a couple looks inside that we just didn't finish on."

One bright spot in the day ,despite the one-sided scoring, was Tigers netminder Ian Callahan. Despite being shelled throughout the game, Callahan made a large number of fantastic stops, many of which were on pointblank shots.

"[Ian] had a great night and made some big saves. It's especially exciting since he is only a sophomore," said Jones, who also had good things to say about one of his d-men: "Tom Terra, a junior LSM (long stick midfielder), continues to do good things for us, especially in the middle of the field."

By half-time, the Tigers found themselves down 7-0. When they emerged for the third quarter, they finally got on the scoreboard. Evan Aigeldinger bull-rushed the goal and snapped one into the twine, spoiling the shutout at 11:02. Springfield came back with a goal of their own at 10:26. Two minutes later, they netted two goals within 17 seconds, making it 10-1. From that point on, the game became of a nasty, physical grind with both teams driving each other into the ground.

Amidst a flurry of penalties and hard hits, the game's only other goal came late in the fourth from Springfield, and the game ended 11-1.

Jones, who focused on moving forward rather than dwelling on the loss said, "Overall, these are just growing pains. We need to continue working hard, becoming more fundamentally sound and disciplined. The guys have done a great job of keeping their heads up through some tough times this season and I expect that this loss will further fuel their hard work."