SACO — The Thornton Academy boys lacrosse team showed flashes of brilliance in Friday evening’s season opener against Gorham. The Golden Trojans would jump out to several big leads only to see the visiting Rams cut into the deficit a few minutes later.

In the end, the Trojans would have enough firepower to extinguish a fourth-quarter charge from Gorham as they picked up a 16-7 victory at Hill Stadium.

“We had these four or five minute spurts in the first, second and third that looked really, really good and showed how dangerous we can be,” said TA head coach Ryan Hersey. “Then we kind of tapered off there and kind of got complacent. I think when you score three or four goals in a couple of minutes you can lose your focus and then start playing more street ball than what we’re looking for.”

The Trojans jumped out to a 4-2 lead after the opening quarter thanks to a pair of scores from Noah Edborg and one goal from both Tucker Weeks and Jack Webb.

CJ LaBreck made it 5-2 just 21 seconds into the second period and Edborg would score three straight goals to push the lead to 8-2.

Webb continued the Trojans’ scoring streak with a goal at the 7:37 mark of the second quarter to make it 9-2.

Gorham would cut into the lead before the half as the Rams scored a pair of goals to make it 9-4 at the break.

The third quarter would be all Thornton Academy. Sam Edborg, Tom Levasseur, Webb and Nathan Varle all scored goals for the Trojans to extend the lead to 13-4 heading into the fourth.

The visiting Rams responded with a pair of goals in the first three minutes of the fourth to cut the lead to 13-6.

Gorham got even closer with a score at the 4-minute mark and the TA advantage was down to 13-7.

The Trojans woke up from their fourth-quarter funk with goals from Chandler Bilodeau, Noah Edborg and Levasseur in the final minutes to secure the season-opening victory.

Hersey was happy to open the season with a win, but understands that his team will have to put it all together to compete with the state’s best programs.

“We played well for about 15 minutes and we’ve got to work on building that closer to 48 minutes than 15 minutes,” said Hersey. “They’re a good team but with Cape (Elizabeth) and Falmouth up this year that’s not going to cut it. We’ve got to do better.”

Noah Edborg, who led the Trojans with six goals and one assist, echoed his coach’s comments.

“I thought we came out hot in the first five minutes of each quarter. I just think we need to come out and play all 48 (minutes) and keep it going … we just need to keep pressing the gas pedal,” Edborg said.

Levasseur finished with two goals and four assists, while LaBreck had one goal and three assists and Wyatt LeBlanc dished out two assists in the win.

Webb, who is an imposing attacker at 6-foot-5, 295 pounds, finished with three goals. Hersey was happy to get his big man involved in the Trojans’ offensive attack.

“We want him to go this year. They’ve kind of brought back the bull dodge so he can kind of run into his guy and push them around,” said Hersey. “He just has to work on finding the open guy a little bit more. He’s a great passer, but we just have to work with him to recognize when to go and shoot and when to pass. He’s made a lot of progress in the last couple of weeks, and I think as the weeks go on he’s going to get better and better.”

NOTES: Ean Patry stopped 12 shots in net for Thornton Academy (1-0) … The Trojans, who got assists from Weeks and Anthony Bracamonte on Friday, will have 12 days off before they play Deering on Wednesday, April 25 … Chris Tucker led Gorham with two goals. The Rams also got scores from Colby Gould, Connor Dougherty, Jake Dupuis, Ben Nault and Cooper Lyons.

— Sports Editor Pat McDonald can be reached at pmcdonald@journaltribune.com or at 282-1535 ext. 322. Follow the Journal Tribune Sports Department on Twitter @JournalTsports.

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