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Lynnfield boys lacrosse coach Joe Papagni said that Jimmy Whelan did a good job playing defense against Tyngsborough star Kyle LaForge
By ANNE MARIE TOBIN
LYNNFIELD — The Lynnfield boys lacrosse team has struggled all year long with turnovers and bad penalties. Last Saturday, the Pioneers had another pair of headaches in the form of Tyngsborough’s UMass Lowell-bound — and former All-American — Kyle LaForge, and teammate Matt Butler, who torched the Pioneers for a combined 16 points to lead the Tigers to a 13-4 win at Pioneer Stadium.
The loss was the 11th straight for Lynnfield, which dropped to 4-13.
“We knew what we were facing, we knew he (LaForge) was a top D1 scholarship player, the scouting reports I had were right on the money and we had a game plan to block him out,” Lynnfield coach Joe Papagni said. “I thought Jimmy Whelan did a good job on him and got him a little frustrated at times, but again we just were killed by turnovers, penalties and a lackluster effort.
“I just don’t think the desire was there today. We lost 90 percent of the ground balls, we had trouble at faceoff, again, going up against a Division 1 player, you aren’t going to win too many of them. We are definitely taking our lumps right now.”
Lynnfield fell into a 5-0 hole early in the second quarter, but got on the board at the 7:31 mark. Nick Moreschi made a strong run up the middle to draw a pair of Tiger penalties, giving the Pioneers a two man up advantage (6 v 4). Thirty seconds later, Ryan Freitas took a feed from Jack Razzaboni and rifled a high shot past Tigers’ goalie Danny Powers to cut the deficit to 5-1.
The Pioneers gave that goal right back three minutes later when a pair of delayed Pioneer penalties gave Tyngsborough a two-man up advantage. Butler (6 goals, 4 assists) needed just 10 seconds to strike after a nice feed from LaForge (2 goals, four assists) to make it 6-1. Moreschi made a nice run downfield to kill out the rest of the second penalty.
Razzaboni made it a four-goal game with 1:59 to play in the half. Freitas turned down an open shot, and fed Razzaboni cutting into the slot to make it 6-2.
Lynnfield took another ill-advised penalty at the buzzer and started the second half down a man.
Tyngsborough took full advantage, scoring twice (LaForge from Butler and Butler from LaForge) within the first minute and a half to put the game out of reach with the Tigers leading, 8-1.
“We’re only down four goals and we take another bad penalty and have to start the second half short-handed, and that pretty much was the game,” said Papagni. “What we are doing at practice, preaching the need to play smart and not take stupid penalties, is not carrying over to games, so It’s easy to get deflated. You would think that would not be a problem 17 games into the season. It’s perplexing, but all you can do is keep working at it to the end.”
Razzaboni (from Peter Look) and Freitas (from Anthony Murphy) capped the Pioneers scoring with third quarter scores to send the Pioneers into the final 12 minutes down, 10-4.
Tigers’ coach Kyle Brady said it all came down to strong defense and winning faceoffs.
“Our defense showed up today, they were patient in clearing the ball and we also had a good effort at faceoff “X” from Kyle,” he said. “Our goalkeeper (Powers) played well. He’s a three-year starter and he and the rest of the seniors all showed up to play today.”
Tyngsborough improved to 12-4 with the win.