SCARBOROUGH — After he broke his left hand in a game against Brunswick on May 13, Scarborough senior Jeremiah Park thought his high school lacrosse career might be over.
Then, with a removable cast that barely fit under a glove, Park got the go ahead from his doctor to compete. Still, he struggled to find his shot, firing a ball against a wall over and over until it felt close to right. Recently, as they wrapped and padded Park’s broken left hand, Scarborough Coach Zach Barrett was honest with the midfielder.
“I looked at him and said, ‘If you were a junior, you wouldn’t be playing.’ But he’s a senior. He’s a senior captain. He’s lived and died Scarborough lacrosse his entire career. The kid loves the game, and I couldn’t keep him off the field,” Barrett said.
All the extra effort was worth it. Just 1:02 into overtime of a Class A South quarterfinal Thursday against Gorham, Park scored the biggest goal of his career, giving the Red Storm a 7-6 win.
“I saw the goalie (Ian Connors) duck a little bit, and I just fired,” Park said. “My hand’s been bugging me a lot, and honestly, that’s a shot that hasn’t gone a whole lot. I was lucky it went in. I’ve been trying to figure it out with only two of my fingers for a while.”
No. 4 Scarborough (10-3) will face No. 1 Cape Elizabeth (11-2) in the semifinals on Saturday. No. 5 Gorham ends the season at 6-7.
Scarborough led 3-1 at the half and 6-3 at the end of the third quarter, after late goals by Olin Pedersen and Quinn Fogarty gave the Red Storm a little breathing room. The fourth quarter was all Gorham, though.
Haden Pelletier scored with 9:47 left to cut Scarborough’s lead to 6-4. With 3:27 to play, Jacob Graham fired a low shot past goalie Benjamin Kerbel.
After calling a timeout with 1:12 left, the Rams knotted the game with 53.4 seconds left on Jacob Lehmann’s second goal of the game.
“I don’t think it was our best game, by a long shot. We just tried to hang around long enough, which we did,” said Gorham Coach Clayton Jones. “They came up with the goods. I give my guys a lot of credit.”
“They’ve got some really good shooters, and we gave them way too much space. Defensively, we weren’t on point,” Barrett said.
Scarborough controlled the ball for all of the short overtime, setting up Park’s winner.
“That kid scores with a broken hand. That’s a heck of a play,” Jones said.
The Red Storm took a quick 2-0 lead in the first quarter on goals by Sam Rumelhart and Olin Pedersen. After Lehmann scored for Gorham with the man advantage, Finn Pedersen made it 3-1 with 1:48 left in the first.
Olin Pedersen and Finn Pedersen each scored a pair of goals.
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