St. Mary's Boys Lacrosse Uses Depth to Pull Away from McCann Tech
NORTH ADAMS, Mass. -- The St. Mary’s boys lacrosse team scored seven straight second-half goals to break open a tie game en route to a 10-4 win over McCann Tech on Monday afternoon.
Kegan Foley, Fred Murray and Bryce Roberts each had a hat trick, including two goals apiece during the decisive second half run, which gave the Saints a 10-3 lead with about two minutes left to play.
“There’s one thing I’ve learned about lacrosse this season,” first-year McCann Tech coach Justin Kratz said. “It is that a deep bench is essential.
“I mean, our guys are good and they’re playing hard, but when you only have two subs … And you can see they had, I think 20-plus players. It makes a big difference when you can put fresh legs in, especially in the second half.”
The Hornets have been ravished by injuries this season, and the trend continued right through Monday’s finale. Colby Ghidotti, who gave McCann Tech a lead with the first goal of the game, left the game in the second quarter with an injured finger, leaving the Hornets with just one sub the rest of the way.
The teams traded goals throughout a back-and-forth first half that ended in a 3-3 tie.
Foley answered Ghidotti’s goal with a man-up tally to tie it, 1-1, at the end of the first quarter.
Roberts then scored a transition goal five minutes into the second quarter to give the Saints a 2-1 lead.
The Hornets’ Lucan McGrath answered with a transition goal at the other end, and after St. Mary’s took a 3-2 lead, Jason Knapp scored in the final minute of the half to send the teams into the break knotted at 3-3.
Murray scored his second goal of the game early in the second quarter to give the visitors the lead for good. It was 7-3 by the time the quarter ended.
The Saints led by as many as seven goals before McCann Tech’s Keeghan Dellaghelfa drove through the middle of the St. Mary’s defense and scored in the final minute of play.
Rylie Fortini stopped 13 shots for McCann Tech.
“It was a fun season,” Kratz said. “We had a ton of injuries that factored into the outcome, but we’re outside, we’re playing after a year and a half, and we’ll take that.
“They worked hard all season long. And this ended up being Senior Day although we didn’t know it because Granby forfeited tomorrow. We were going to do something for the seniors tomorrow. We have three, and they were definitely players they other guys looked up to.
“Moving forward, we’ve got to try to build the numbers up for future seasons.”