Coming into play on Wednesday against Northern Burlington, boy’s lacrosse had dropped two straight games after beginning the season 2-0. The Greyhounds then handed the Pirates a third consecutive defeat, 7-2.
Cinnaminson kept Northern Burlington close into the fourth quarter, even pulling to within one goal, but wound up dropping the game despite strong defensive play in the first three quarters.
“Our defense played a phenomenal game. We have a good defense and it is late in the game, if the offense can’t possess the ball, it becomes mentally difficult for the defense to make good stops when the ball comes back to their end. The defense, through and through, played a great game. The owness on this game lays on the offense,” head coach Craig Angelini said.
Northern Burlington opened a two-goal lead on the Pirates in the first, but Cinnaminson answered when Mason McLaverty found the back of the net with 9:03 left in the second.
The score would stay 2-1 at halftime. Another goal would not be scored until there was only 1:28 left in the third as the Greyhounds went up 3-2 heading into the final quarter of play.
Part of the reason why the game remained close for so long was the play of goalie Stephen Gigliotti.
“Steph has stepped up tremendously this year. He’s been great,” Angelini said. “He keeps us in games. He’s doing his job and that’s keeping us competitive. He’s been pretty solid all around and he’s got a great attitude. For really his first varsity season, he’s doing everything we could possibly ask right now.”
Less than two minutes into the fourth, Tom Schlindwein got the Pirates to within one, 3-2, with his lone goal of the game. That was as close as Cinnaminson would get.
“Because we have a young team, and our guys want it so bad, they all kinds of abandoned the game plan and tried to do everything themselves. That gets us into trouble because you have to execute as an offense to produce goals at this level. It causes a lot of turnovers,” Angelini said.
Northern Burlington would go on to score four consecutive goals to take the game by the final score of 7-2.
Despite a three-game losing streak, the Pirates are 2-3 and on the cusp of .500. Angelini spoke about the length of the lacrosse season after today’s loss.
“It’s a long season and you don’t win the race on the first lap. My message has always been that they learn from their mistakes and they work on improvement. As long as they do that, we will be just fine with our record at the end of the season. We can’t really focus on wins and losses as much as fixing the mistakes and improving in our game. The wins will come.”
Cinnaminson takes the field again on Saturday when the Pirates travel to Mainland at 11am.
