By Daniel Carney
Sports Reporter
As the Newton South boys’ lacrosse team took to the turf Thursday afternoon, they looked to grasp their first win-streak of the 2015 season against the Bedford Buccaneers.
Though showing some signs of being able to keep it close with their much larger opponents in the first quarter, South ended up taking a 10-3 loss in the DCL action.
“I could have worked on being a little more accurate with my clearing, but overall for the help that I got, I made the saves that I needed to,” junior captain Harrison Miller said. “I tried to put my team in a position to win, unfortunately that was not possible today.”
The game opened up and quickly sided to the Buccaneers, as the team took a 1-0 lead just 57 seconds into the contest. After South kept Bedford quiet for the next six minutes, the Buccaneers tacked on another goal, taking a 2-0 advantage as South was still fighting to even get off shots against their opponents.
With 3:40 to go in the opening quarter, the Lions finally found the back of the net as senior captain Nick DiNisco hit an open sophomore Zach Houston-Read for the score. The Lions’ shot differential against Bedford didn’t look like all that big of a deal at the end of 12 minutes (6-3), but the trend would get progressively worse in the following quarters.
Bedford scored twice in the second quarter, with one coming at the 9:36 mark and the other at the 6:37, while keeping the Lions scoreless. Holding a 4-1 lead going into a fresh, 24-minute stretch, the Buccaneers had only previewed what was to come in the second half.
Newton South only managed to get five shots on goal during the first half, compared to Bedford’s 15.
Continuing from a dominating second quarter, Bedford amplified their offensive game plan, launching a steady attack against the South defense early on in the third. The Buccaneers scored their first goal of the new half at the 9:00 mark, and went on to net three more in a span of 2:19.
All of a sudden, going into the final quarter South was trailing 8-1 and had few answers on how to stop Bedford’s ability to control the flow of the game.
In both the second and third quarter, the Lions had only two shots compared to Bedford’s nine (and an 18-4 advantage overall), which ultimately was one of the main reasons South simply could not stay close in the game.
Bedford made it seven unanswered goals in the first minute of the fourth, but South didn’t give up despite the big differential; the players still played their hardest and kept the game interesting. The Lions found the back of the net for only the second time on the day with 7:32 as Nick DiNisco scored an unassisted goal. Then, just about four minutes later, freshman Gus Korsch converted on an assist by Tyler McCarthy.
The Buccaneers would go on to score one more, finding their way to the 10-goal mark and winning in impressive fashion.
In the fourth quarter alone, South had seven shots compared to Bedford’s six. Overall, South had just as many shots in the last quarter as they did in the first three quarters combined. Bedford finished with a 30-14 shot-advantage against the Lions.
“We couldn’t find open shots, we didn’t get the ball on offense enough, and when we took the shots, they weren’t necessarily the best shots we could have taken,” Miller said about his team’s offense.
“I’m guessing he had over 15 saves in the game easily,” 2014 captain Jake Alexander, who was in attendance Thursday, said about Miller. “Bedford must have had over 30 shots on the kid so it’s definitely not his fault, no one’s fault really, they gave it their all and they’re having a bridge year.”
The Lions rebounded earlier today with a 11-5 win against Dedham, bringing their record to 3-11 on the season.
