After a 13-7 loss to Portland on Saturday in which the Cape Elizabeth High boys lacrosse team struggled mightily in the first half, the Capers wanted to get off on the right foot in Monday’s road contest against South Portland.
Saying they accomplished that would be quite the understatement. With four goals in the game’s first 3:10, Cape took command early and was never threatened in an 18-3 win over the Red Riots at South Portland High School.
Cape improved to 6-3 while South Portland dropped to 3-4.
“We definitely played well at the beginning,” said Cape coach Ben Raymond. “We hadn’t started well the past two games, so that was definitely the emphasis for us – to come out and try to score a couple early and try to possess the ball and not make any foolish mistakes at the beginning of the game.”
Mike Holden scored his first of five goals for the Capers just 71 seconds into the contest. Tom Foden (four goals) added two over the next minute. Holden scored again with 8:50 to go in the first quarter for the 4-0 lead. Holden and Jon O’Hearn (three goals) added goals before the first quarter was through, staking the Capers to a 6-0 lead after one.
“I thought it would be a little more competitive,” said South Portland coach Tom Fiorini. “I thought my kids came out a little flat today. I thought we could have given them a better game. I’m not saying we’d have beat them, but I think we could have given them a better game.”
The Cape lead swelled to 12-0 by halftime. South Portland got on the board first in the third quarter, as Adam Burpee scored with 10:20 to go, but the Capers scored the final four goals of the quarter to take a 16-1 lead into the fourth.
Dustin Matthews had two goals in the fourth quarter for South Portland.
While the outcome was lopsided, Fiorini said the Riots could learn form the game.
“I begged for this game,” Fiorini said. “I think you have to play the better teams to become a better program. I think there’s something constructive coming out of this. We see what need to do to become a better program and a better team, and we’ll work towards it.”
Against Portland, Cape fell behind 9-2 in the first half before coming alive in the second.
“We played very well in the second half, but we played horrible in the first half,” Raymond said. “We were awful in the first half. We didn’t do anything well at the beginning of the game. We didn’t clear the ball well. We didn’t ride well. We threw the ball away in transition. Our midfield defense was horrible in the first half. Then in the second half, we played well.”
Holden and Foden each scored twice against Portland.
“It’s a long season,” Raymond said. “Our goal is always to win all our games, but our ultimate goal is to win the last game of the season. Everything we do up until that point is practice for that game. We’ve got to learn from what we did poorly against Portland and we tried to fix that today.”
After having to face Scarborough (a 14-5 loss on Friday) and Cape back-to-back, the Riots’ schedule eases up for the final few games. Fiorini believes his team could finish strong to gain momentum heading into the postseason.
“We need to win out five games,” Fiorini said. “If we end up 8-4, we get a nice seed for the playoffs. I don’t see any reason we can’t do that.”
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