It was a night to honor the seniors and what better way to do so than with a victory? How about the first victory of the 2016 season? That is exactly what the boy’s lacrosse team did on Tuesday with a 4-3 win over visiting Williamstown on senior night.
“We killed clock when we needed to, we were smart with the ball,” head coach Craig Angelini said. “We’re still getting ourselves into some penalty trouble.”
“Williamstown is a great team. They were fighting hard. Their goalie was phenomenal. He was standing on his head tonight. We had a gameplan and our guys stuck to the gameplan. It’s a good win. It’s nice to get a home win on senior night.”
Cinnaminson is now 1-7 on the season and has a big rematch with Holy Cross on Friday at home.
“I’ve been telling them all along that we cannot be judged on our wins and losses at this point,” Angelini said. “We need to be judged on our growth. We capitalized on our man-up. That’s been this invisible barrier for us. We’ve continually been beating ourselves with our man-up plays. Today they made it look easy.”
The game marked the second time this year that the Pirates faced the Braves and third time in two season. Cinnaminson is now 2-1 all-time against Williamstown.
The Pirates lost earlier this year by a 7-6 score and won the first-ever meeting last season on senior night by a 3-1 score. After never winning on senior night, the Pirates have now won two years in a row.
It couldn’t have been anymore fitting as the scoring was started by senior Tyler Simcoe with 9:08 left in the opening quarter.
“I was in ‘X’ and they were clearing the ball,” Simcoe said. “One of our players knocked it out of their stick. Mike O’Brien picked it up and I was standing next to the goalie. He drew the slide, dished it to me, and I gave it a backhanded shot and put it in.”
Williamstown tied the game less than one minute later, but the Pirates did not waiver. Cinnaminson took a 2-1 lead with a little over a minute left in the first when Ryan Devone found the back of the net.
JT Holt got in on the scoring for the lone goal of the second quarter as the Pirates held a 3-1 lead at halftime.
“Our younger guys took some shots,” Angelini said. “We had a goal out of a younger guy today. JT Holt has a great shot. We got him to pull the trigger and he scored.”
The third quarter was scoreless, but it was in the fourth that the action really took off. The hitting got a lot harder, the defenses hunkered down and the goalies made some incredible saves.
“I would say tonight was the first time we looked like a team as a whole,” Simcoe said. “The defense played phenomenal. They had a lot of penalty kills. The offense was firing the ball. We were working the ball great. We just looked great as a team.”
With just 1:01 gone in the fourth the Braves made it interesting by connecting on a goal to pull within 3-2. It took until there was 5:55 left for the Pirates to extend the lead back to two at 4-2 when Mike O’Brien scored on a laser of a shot.
Williamstown had no plans of going quietly, scoring with just 13 seconds left in regulation to pull the game to 4-3.
“You can’t take anything away from them on that play,” Angelini said. “I think it’s a function of discipline on our team and a function of how hard Williamstown played.”
Cinnaminson retained possession late and chucked the ball in the air as the final seconds ticked off the clock and the horn sounded.
“I want them to remember how when we execute our gameplan, good things happen,” Angelini said of his post-game talk with the team. “When we abandon our gameplan, bad things happen. When we do the right things, good things happen.”
The Pirates host Holy Cross this Friday at 3:30pm.
“Don’t sit back. Just because we won a game it doesn’t mean anything,” Simcoe said. “If we play like we played tonight, we will be fine. We gotta work hard. This was the first step to hopefully many successes in the future.”
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