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East Lyme boys finish strong with 15-4 lacrosse win over NFA
Norwich — There were reminders throughout from head coach Gary Wight, who called on his East Lyme High School boys’ lacrosse team not to let up during Tuesday’s matchup against Norwich Free Academy.
There was even a timeout from Wight with 5 minutes, 1 second remaining in what turned out to be a 15-4 victory, capping a regular season in which the Vikings captured the Eastern Connecticut Conference Division I championship and wrapped up the top seed in the upcoming league tournament.
“We always have to keep the energy up,” senior captain Jack Keating said. “If we just stop playing, they’re going to be able to get points on us, but if we keep our energy up we’re going to be able to play a good game and get more goals.”
“When we play a full game both offensively and defensively, we do well,” said Wight, in his 20th season. “But we’ve had some slips when we play three quarters or two quarters and didn’t finish the game. Our focus for probably the last half of the season has been to play full games, full games, to really harp on it.”
Jack Campbell, Drew Sager and Keating had three goals each for East Lyme (9-7, 7-1), which lost three of four games prior to Tuesday due to a loaded nonconference schedule and also a narrow division loss to Fitch.
Campbell added three assists, while Juan Morales had two goals and Gavin White one goal and three assists. Goalie Spencer Sherman made 12 saves and John Whewell made three.
East Lyme led 2-0 on a pair of early goals by Sager before NFA narrowed it to 2-1 on a score by Logan Jenkins. Keating responded for East Lyme, however, and the Vikings scored three unanswered goals in all to lead 5-1 at the end of the first quarter.
White scored with East Lyme a man up to end the first half with an 8-2 lead and the Vikings made it 10-3 after three quarters.
Abiding by Wight’s sense of urgency, the Vikings never let up. When Conor Dempsey scored for NFA with 7:46 to play, East Lyme’s Morales came flying down the field to answer just seven seconds later.
Jenkins scored twice for NFA (9-5, 5-3).
“I really like where we’re at,” East Lyme’s Sager said. “I think our team has really developed and come together throughout the season. We really are a family so that really helps us. Going into ECCs and having this really nice win at the end of the season brings some momentum.”
There are 14 seniors on the team, including Keating, Sawyer Tighe and Sherman.
Wight said some of the nonleague losses, including those to 10th-ranked Hand and Class M state tournament runner-up Notre Dame-West Haven, “hurt but they paid off in the long run.”
“It’s made us a better team,” said Wight, who said the defense is one of the things that is stronger now than at the beginning of the season. “It kind of put things in perspective for us; it shows us how hard we need to play when we get into states.”
