Sophomore Christian Price scored five goals to propel the BC High boys’ lacrosse team past Duxbury, 11-9, in a Division 1 South sectional title matchup at Harvard University on Wednesday night.
The Eagles (19-3) earned their second straight berth in the Div. 1 state championship where BC High will face Lincoln-Sudbury (18-1) Saturday at Boston University’s Nickerson Field.
“My team are such great competitors,” Price said. “Duxbury is a great team. We couldn’t have done it without being a team.”
The Dragons (17-6) took a late 9-8 lead with 5:52 to go, but the Eagles went on a three-goal flurry, which was highlighted by Max Djusberg’s tying goal and Charlie Pyne’s go-ahead tally that put BC High ahead to stay, 10-9.
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“That’s probably the best game I’ve been a part of at BC High,” said head coach Steve Lydon. “Hats off to Duxbury. They’re a great team. We thought it’d be a race to ten [goals].”
After Price gave BC High a 1-0 lead, the Dragons scored three unanswered goals to close out the first quarter with a 4-1 lead. The Eagles scored the next three, with Pat Bulger scoring twice to tie it up.
A pair of Duxbury goals put the Dragons ahead late in the second half, but Price answered with a goal with 1:31 left to pull BC within 6-5 at halftime.
The Eagles opened the second half with two goals to pull ahead, 7-6. Price followed with his fourth goal of the game to extend BC High’s lead to 8-6. Quick tallies from Duxbury’s Riley Bergstrom and Nick LoConte tied it, 8-8, with 7:30 remaining.
Charlie Gans gave the Dragons a 9-8 lead, but Djusberg knotted it at 9-apiece just seven seconds later.
“It helped with Max [Djusberg] winning a bunch of faceoffs,” said Lydon. “Can’t say enough about the game he played.”
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Pyne then put the Eagles ahead for good with his goal with 3:54 left. Price added an insurance goal to give BC High the buffer it needed to seal the victory.
“Everybody on our bench is insane,” Price said. “They all can step up on any given night.”
Division 1 semifinal
Lincoln-Sudbury 9, Acton-Boxborough 7 — For two-time defending Division 1 state champion Lincoln-Sudbury, facing Dual County League rival Acton-Boxborough in Wednesday’s Division 1 North boys’ lacrosse final represented a significant challenge. But in the end, the Warriors pulled away for a hard-fought 9-7 victory.
Lincoln-Sudbury (18-1) will face BC High (19-3) in Saturday’s state championship game at BU’s Nickerson Field.
“We’ve had a target on our backs for a lot of years and it’s just getting bigger and bigger, so we know we’re going to get somebody’s best,” Lincoln-Sudbury coach Brian Vona said.
After falling behind 2-0 early, L-S erupted for six goals over the final six and a half minutes of the first quarter.
Yet A-B (16-5) rallied, capitalizing on a couple of uncharacteristic defensive lapses by the Warriors to tie the contest, 6-6, early in the third quarter.
“[The Colonials] have scouted us, we knew what they were going to run, and they ran it very well,” said Vona. “We managed to gather ourselves up and overcome it.”
The Warriors leaned on an extraordinary trio of seniors in Hayden Frey (goal, two assists), Jack Sutherland (four goals), and Brett Williams (two goals, assist): all three scored during a steady 3-0 run, while a star-studded defensive unit led by poles Ryan Donlan and Dan Ryan, and goalie Trevor Van Leer (6 saves) held the Colonials to just one goal over the final 23 minutes of play.
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Seniors Sam Witt (two goals, assist) and Dan Armstrong (three goals) led A-B while senior goalie Tim Fenniman made 13 saves.
“It’s always a fight against a DCL opponent,” Sutherland said. “I give a lot of credit to coach [Pat] Ammendolia and A-B. They made it tough on us but we were able to push through eventually.”
“It got a little sloppy at times, but it just comes down to heart in a game like that.”
Division 2 semifinals
Hingham 17, Beverly 5 — The Hingham boys’ lacrosse team is back in the state finals, and they don’t have to deal with Medfield, the Harbormen’s Achilles’ heel, this time.
The South champion Harbormen dominated Beverly from the opening draw, scoring twice in the opening 1:09 and four times in the first 2:39 of the second quarter as they breezed to a Division 2 state semifinal victory at Norwell High.
The Harbormen (22-3) earned a berth in the Div. 2 state final at Boston University on Saturday, where they will face Central/West champion Longmeadow, which knocked Medfield out of the tourney.
“It’s another step closer to where we want to be and where everybody wants to be at this time of the year,” said Hingham head coach John Todd, whose team outshot Beverly, 31-14. “We’re playing well. We can’t fault anything we did tonight.”
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Nine different players scored, led by Frankie Higgins’ three unassisted goals off faceoff wins. Senior captains Devin Irvin (two goals), Jack Hennessey (one goal, two assists), and Marc O’Rourke (two goals) all chipped in offensively, while Perry Harris made nine saves in net.
“We try to just take what’s given to us and everybody is very unselfish and looks for each other,” said Todd. “People aren’t playing with their heads down as far as trying to get a goal or whatever. We just took what they threw at us, we adjusted to what kind of defense they were playing, and we were either prepared for that or were able to see it enough that we could get the ball moving.”
Division 3 semifinals
Ipswich 11, Hanover 10 — After losing in the Division 3 state semifinals in two of the past three seasons, North champion Ipswich held off a late rally by South champion Hanover at Norwell High on Wednesday. Charlie Gillis’s goal with 13 seconds left helped the Tigers advance to the D3 state final, where they will take on Grafton at Boston University on Saturday.
Ipswich (19-2) came out strong, scoring the first three goals and jumping out to a 4-1 lead after the first quarter. The teams traded blows in the second quarter for a 6-3 halftime score before the Tigers netted the last two goals of the third quarter to take a 9-4 lead. Senior Killian Morrissey (four goals) and senior Tommy Ginolfi (one goal, three assists) were instrumental on the attack, benefiting from a strong performance in the face-off dot.
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“It’s hard at this time of the year because neither one of us has seen the other one play, so you’re kind of just going on what you can hear or what you can read in the paper,” said Ipswich coach Glenn Foster. “I think we just kind of jumped out on them, maybe surprised them a little bit.”
Hanover (16-5) came roaring back in the fourth quarter, going on a 5-1 run to tie the game at 10. Junior attack Neil Calkin woke up after being held to a single assist in the first three quarters. He finished the game with three goals and three assists, including the assist on Michael McGlame’s tying goal with 20 seconds remaining.
But Gillis wanted nothing to do with overtime. The senior captain took the draw and sprinted right up the middle of the field, firing a shot past Hanover goalie Michael Nassif to clinch the win.
“I just put my head down and focused on the draws like I did all day,” said Gillis. “And then I just saw an open crease and ran by their kid and nobody slid so I could take that shot.”
Marisa Ingemi and Nate Weitzer reported from Allston, and Dan McLoone from Norwell.