The title took 10 years to regain for Yarmouth High’s boys’ lacrosse team and a season’s worth of practice preparing for the final opponent.
No. 2 Yarmouth built a five-goal lead in the third quarter and then hung on down the stretch to beat No. 1 Greely 11-10 to win the Class B title Friday at Fitzpatrick Stadium. It was the Clippers’ first title since 2009. They had lost six Class B finals since then, including five straight from 2013-17.
“My sophomore year we made it to states. We lost. My freshman year we made it to states. We lost. We had a heartbreaker last year to Brunswick (in the semifinals),” said senior defender Jake Rogers. “It always seemed like we’d have a good team but not a great one. We couldn’t finish. And this year we came out and finished it off and it feels great.”
For No. 1 Greely, it was the second straight one-goal loss in the final. Both teams finished 11-4.
Yarmouth scored four straight goals in the third quarter to open a 10-5 lead but Greely responded with three in the final 2:14 to cut the margin to 10-8.
The Rangers twice cut the lead to one in the fourth quarter.
Greely’s Ethan Fraser scored his sixth goal of the game on Andrew Lawrence’s fourth assist with 8:36 to play to make the score 10-9.
Yarmouth answered with an unassisted goal from Ben Hamilton with 5:23. It proved to be the winner. Hamilton was one of seven Clippers to score. Andy Garrett and Kurt Heywood each had three goals, and Gavin Hamm, Anders Corey, Michael Guertler (three assists), and Connor Senger each scored once.
The Clippers also got key contributions from defensive midfielder Ashanti Haywood, who excelled in transitioning the ball from defense to offense, and faceoff specialist Griffin Primeau, who battled Greely’s tandem of Jackson Williams and Chris Williams to a standstill for most of the game.
“All year we just preached everybody has to do their part, no matter how big, how small,” said Guertler. “Everyone has to contribute. It can’t be one or two guys and we did a really great job of that tonight.”
Greely cut the lead to 11-10 with 4:36 to play on William Schumacher’s hard shot from outside through traffic but the Rangers generated only two shots the rest of the way and the one on target, a close-range bid by Lawrence, was gobbled up by goalie Spencer King (8 saves).
“Greely does a great job on their back cuts,” said Rogers. “We just did a drill for about 20 minutes a day practicing a back-cut offense. Brunswick, Cape, Greely, they all use that offense and we knew we were going to play them and they’d be big games. We just practiced all year for this type of an offense.”
The Rangers’ last clean possession was halted by an illegal pick with 27 seconds to play.
“We didn’t take care of the ball our last few possessions,” said Greely Coach Mike Storey. “We didn’t complete the comeback that we needed. They got the momentum there in the middle of the game and we just came up a little short.”
Yarmouth Coach David Pearl was not at the game. Pearl was hospitalized earlier in the day because of an infection. Assistant coach Jon Miller said Pearl will be fine.
“He’s brought us here,” Miller said of Pearl. “He really deserves a lot of credit for getting here today. He tried his best to get here. It’s a small infection type of thing but he’ll be fine.”
Send questions/comments to the editors.
