QUINCY — Throughout the spring, Norwell’s boys lacrosse program has had a daring goal on its proverbial again. To most, the Clippers had been the consensus crew to beat within the Div. 3 discipline. Understandable, provided that they had been contemporary off a state crown in 2022.
Despite loads of obstacles, they now discover themselves in a well-known place – one win from the top.
Senior captain Austin Shea completed with a game-high six objectives Wednesday night time, as top-seeded Norwell superior to the championship for a 3rd straight marketing campaign with a convincing 16-4 drubbing of No. 5 Medfield at Veterans Stadium.
“We knew this was going to be a good game,” mentioned Norwell coach Josh Stolp. “This is a great team, we’ve seen them three years now in a row. Solid team, well-coached, very disciplined. So we knew we had to play our ‘A’ game. Luckily our guys came out and did a great job.”
This semifinal tilt was a rematch of final yr’s Div. 3 state closing, and the Clippers got here in able to defend their {hardware}. Shea registered a pair of objectives within the first 4 minutes earlier than Oliver Rice and Tim Ward every discovered the cage to supply Norwell (18-3) a 4-1 lead within the opening body.
However, with 52.7 seconds to play within the first, a bolt of lightning flashed throughout the horizon. Shortly thereafter, the skies opened up with torrential downpours, and the sport entered a delay which lasted nicely over an hour. For many groups, that might be thought-about a momentum killer.
“There was a sense of comfortability in there since we were up 4-1,” Shea mentioned. “But we knew we had to come out, because we knew what they were doing in the locker room. We knew they were going to come out hard.”
That the Warriors did. Medfield (15-7) trimmed the deficit to 4-2 off senior captain Kevin Arthur’s second objective with 10:14 left within the half. Suddenly, it appeared the sport might be on tempo to turn out to be a thriller.
However, Norwell is without doubt one of the state’s top-scoring groups for a motive and it didn’t take lengthy for the Warriors to seek out that out – 2:36, to be exact.
Syracuse commit John Mullen fired a shot dwelling to make it 5-2 for Norwell with 5:58 left within the second quarter, and the Clippers had been simply heating up. Over the subsequent three minutes, Norwell tacked on 4 extra objectives to leap forward 9-2.
Shea would full the hat trick with 21.2 seconds to play within the stanza, because the Clippers took a 10-2 lead into the break, and they might by no means relent within the second half.
In addition to Shea’s efforts, Norwell was led by rising freshman Jake McGuirk (two objectives, 4 assists). Petrucelli, Rice, and Dylan McGuirk added a pair of objectives apiece, whereas Mullen (objective, help) gained 21-of-24 faceoffs.
Norwell will now look to seize its second straight Div. 3 title this upcoming weekend when it takes on an upstart in seventh-seeded Falmouth.
“We don’t know much about them,” mentioned Stolp. “But we know it’s a good, athletic team. We’ve just got to start going to work for the next couple of days.”
Source: www.bostonherald.com