YARMOUTH — Yarmouth boys’ lacrosse coach Jon Miller says senior midfielder Steven Fulton has been flying under the radar this season.
Not anymore.
Fulton scored a career-high eight goals to help the Clippers retain town bragging rights and stay red-hot with a 16-10 victory over visiting North Yarmouth Academy on Wednesday night on Senior Night.
Yarmouth (10-2) closed the regular season on a seven-game win streak.
“(Steven) was joking last practice that he was in a drought, even though he wasn’t, and he was feeling hungry today,” said Miller. “I think he’s underrated. He’s one of the best middies Yarmouth has had in a long time.”
Peter Psyhogeos gave the Clippers a two-goal lead before Fulton scored his first two goals and defenseman Cam Miller scored on a hockey-type slap shot for a 5-1 lead after one quarter.
But the Panthers, who entered the day ranked first in the Class C Heal Points standings, didn’t fold and stayed within 8-3 at halftime behind a couple goals from Caleb Waterman.
Fulton then scored all four of Yarmouth’s third-quarter goals as the Clippers extended their advantage to 12-6.
“We definitely executed our offense tonight,” Fulton said. “We’ve tweaked some stuff in practice and we did very well. My teammates got me the ball in good positions to score. Pete, Killian (Marsh) and our whole attack draws a lot of attention, but we spread the ball out and got the job done.”
On three occasions in the fourth quarter, NYA drew within five, but could never make a run and Fulton’s eighth goal accounted for the final score.
In addition to Fulton’s dominance, Psyhogeos had three goals and three assists, Marsh and Colter Olson finished with two goals apiece and Cam Miller added one. Goalie Eddie Kim made seven saves.
“It’s good to have a game like this going into the playoffs,” Fulton said. “We’ve had some tight games and we’ve grown a lot from those games.”
Yarmouth expects to be the No. 2 seed in the Class B field when the final standings are announced.
“Our chemistry is great right now and we get home-field advantage for the playoffs, so this was a big win for us,” Jon Miller said.
The Panthers (9-3) got five goals from Waterman, three from Brayden Warde and one apiece from Jonah Donnelly and Chris Hamblett. Goalie Jack Curtis stopped 16 shots.
“We’re trying to put together four quarters of a game and I’m not sure we’ve done that yet,” said NYA Coach Peter Gerrity. “We have our moments where we score a lot fast, but Yarmouth’s very good. They’ve got threats everywhere.”
NYA will likely have home-field advantage for the upcoming playoffs and will look to win Class C for the first time since 2019.
“It will be big to be at home,” Gerrity said. “Class C has a lot of good teams. We have a handful of guys were on the 2019 team and they know what it takes.”
Send questions/comments to the editors.
