BATH — The weather might have been a little cooler than some spectators might have liked, but the Morse High School boys’ lacrosse team (1-0) warmed things up with its offense, cruising to a season-opening 16-1 victory over Mt. Blue.
The Shipbuilders attacked the net the entire game, firing 42 shots on Cougars’ goalie Leo Flannery, while holding strong on defense and limiting Mt. Blue (0-1) to just 10 shots.
“Defensively, I thought our guys worked really well,” Shipbuilders’ head coach Jay Paulus said. “Then again Mt. Blue wasn’t pressuring us as hard as I thought they would. They played well, they got all the ground balls, our faceoffs looked pretty good, but it’s tough to tell with these kinds of matchups to really say, ‘Did we play as well as we should have?’”
On the other side of the field, Cougars’ head coach Kevin Averill entered the season with a young squad, something that showed in this first game.
“Really this is our second time being out on a field, so it’s still a learning experience for our guys,” he said. “We got a lot of young guys out here and we’re down a few. At the beginning of this season, we’re not going to be quite there because we’ve been (practicing) in the parking lot, so we’re just trying to adjust to being out on a field and getting that actual size and spacing that we need.”
Morse got it going right away, scoring just 53 seconds into the game when Alec Beveridge received a give-and-go pass from Kevin Feeney and launched it from the left side to start the game off, 1-0.
The remainder of the opening frame belonged to the Shipbuilders as they piled on 18 shots and scored four more times to take a 5-0 lead into the second. Beveridge scored his second goal with 3:59 remaining in the first, while being credited with an assist two minutes prior.
Game play stayed consisted throughout the rest of the half, with the Shipbuilders continuing to dominate the field, dumping in four more goals on eight shots. This time around Chase Perry was the leader, lacing in two of his eventual four goals, while assisting on the final tally in the half during a man-up situation at the 2:28 marker.
“There are some things we have to work on — passing and catching,” Averill said. “You can see that they’ve (Morse) been out here passing and catching very well. Their kids seemed to be catching everything and we were struggling, but as the game went on these kids were getting more experience. We started a few kids back on defense that have never played there before.”
Come the third quarter the Cougars slowed the roll of the Shipbuilders. Trailing in the face-off spot, 8-2 at the end of the half, Mt. Blue picked up speed, winning five of the seven chances. The team also held its own in shots as Morse controlled only an 8-6 edge. However, the Shipbuilders put five more in the back of the net to increase their side of the scoreboard to 14.
The Cougars did manage to put their lone goal past Morse goalie Ryan Muncey when JT Williams sniped a ball from 15-yards out.
Despite eight more shots from the Shipbuilders, only two added to the score, with Miles Day and Jake Reno taking ownership. Paulus believes much improvement is still needed to compete with the high-caliber teams in the league.
“Our offense was working, but not the way it should be,” he said. “There was poor passing, and even though we won, that wasn’t the important thing. I wanted to see a better level of play, our ball play is still weak, but offense is our strong point this year so when we go against teams like Gardiner, Maranacook, we can’t play like that.”
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