Monday, October 18, 2010

BA Sneaks Past UNH

The lacrosse team battled the wind and rain this Friday as they traveled to UNH to play the Wildcat’s club team. After an exciting back and forth game, the Wolverines came out on top with a close score of 9-8.

With what Coach Bamann called a “rainy and sloppy start to the game”, UNH came out strong to score two goals right off the bat. While they did not dominate play, they were able to grasp a 2-0 lead. It didn’t take long however for Nate Nichols (Penn Yan, NY) to put BA on the board. Sean Williamson (Falmouth, MA) followed Nichols lead netting BA’s second goal a few minutes later. The first quarter ended tied at two goals apiece. However as the second quarter started UNH came out and scored three unanswered goals to move ahead 5-2 at the half.

At the start of the half Alec Westerhoff (LeGrange Park, IL) started BA’s comeback as he scored right off the bat. UNH tallied two more goals, but both Brooks Billingham (Martha’s Vineyard, MA) and Ian Farley (Camillus, NY) scored to get BA back in the game. Starting the fourth and final minutes of play BA knew they needed to capitalize on good passes and opportunities to secure the win. Nichols worked his way through the Wildcat defense two more times to add two more goals to complete his hat trick for the night. A few minutes later Farley scored again giving BA an 8-7 lead. However, UNH kept things close as they tied it up with another goal with only a few minutes left. BA worked hard and Storm Stockstill (Jupiter, FL) fired a rocket for the game winning goal.

While it was a close game on the field, BA dominated UNH in every statistic in the book. Chris Barney (Cheshire, CT) and Spencer Matches (Sammamish, WA) combined to win 20 of 22 face-offs. Barney and Matches also lead the team in groundballs with 8 each. As a team BA out ground balled UNH 23-10 and outshot them 35-24. Colin Nesdale (Cheshire, CT) played in goal for the Wolverines and tallied 9 saves for the night.

Coach Bamann was all in all very happy with the nights performance. The team overcame a sloppy start to play what Bamann called a “very sharp” game. “We moved the ball well and had very unselfish play. The defense shutdown the UNH attack with Leaf, Caufield, Oliver, and Drimal playing solid D all night combined with Nesdale’s key saves in net,” said Bamann.

“We played a really sharp second half with the offense spurred on by great ball movement. They had a lot of good possession so our defense didn’t have to work as hard,” Bamann added.

The team's next game is a home match up with the University Of Maine's Club team on Sunday October 24th at 2:00 P..M.

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