FAIRFIELD — Eleven teams make the Class B boys lacrosse playoffs. Mt. Blue and Lawrence entered Wednesday’s regular-season finale in 11th and 12th place, respectively. It was basically a preliminary-round game to determine which team would earn a spot in the preliminary round.
“It was make or break on the season. If we won, we were in the playoffs. If they won, they were in the playoffs. We just played hard, played like it was a playoff game, and we came out victorious,” Mt. Blue junior Evan Stone said.
The Cougars scored the first five goals of the game to take a 16-8 win. At 5-7, Mt. Blue waits to see who it will face in the playoffs. Lawrence ends the season at 4-8.
“We came out, and we really were just playing good lacrosse. Offensively, we were passing and catching, finding some great looks. I thought we played some really good defense just keeping on their hands so they couldn’t get anything off,” Mt. Blue coach Kevin Averill said.
Stone scored the first three goals of the game, the first coming with 9:19 left in the first quarter. Stone came to the front of the net from right to left, firing a shot to give the Cougars the lead for good. One minute, 29 seconds later, Stone came around from behind the net, and his high shot made it through for a 2-0 lead.
With 2:58 to play in the first, Stone took a Keegan Roberts pass for a 3-0 lead.
“People were running hard. People were working hard, and it clicked. We got a few goals early,” Stone, who finished with four goals, said.
Stone, Roberts (four goals), and Sam Smith (three goals) accounted for 11 of the Cougars 16 goals.
“They’ve got three very talented players in Evan Stone, Keegan Roberts, and Sam Smith,” Lawrence coach Daniel Branningan said. “Our goalie (Gabe York) played out of his mind. The number of point blank stops he made on guys like Stone and Smith. They’re great players. We hit like four pipes. We couldn’t catch a break today and we couldn’t create our own breaks.”
Mt. Blue created a number of its own breaks by being more aggressive in getting to ground balls. The Cougars extended time in the attack zone by simply working to get to the ball.
“We put it all out there today, and it showed,” Stone said.
After a Roberts goal pushed Mt. Blue’s lead to 5-0 early in the second quarter, the Bulldogs broke through with an Alex Higgins goal with 7:10 left in the first half. Higgins, Kristian Larouche, Cam Jordan, and Zach Denis each scored a pair of goals for Lawrence.
Travis Lazarczyk — 861-9242
tlazarczyk@centralmaine.com
Twitter: @TLazarczykMTM
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