St. Albans holds off St. Anne’s comeback

St. Anne’s-Belfield had to deal with both the rain and an angry St. Albans squad Friday afternoon as the Saints fell 12-9 to the Bulldogs.

“We played Collegiate on Wednesday and Collegiate flat out beat us,” said St. Albans coach Malcolm Lester. “Frankly, our morale and mood wasn’t great going into this and we had a frustrating and probably angry 24 hours or so, and this was a chance to come back and beat a team that’s highly touted.”

St. Albans jumped out to a quick 3-0 advantage in the opening minutes of the first quarter, but St. Anne’s was able to fight its way back to within one at 3-2 by the end of the first frame with two goals by sophomore attackman Andrew Crockett. The final score showed just how important the three-goal spurt for the Bulldogs was at the beginning of the game.

“They played very well in the beginning,” said St. Anne’s coach Doug Tarring. “We told our guys one of the things you’ve got to do in a lacrosse game like this that’s very emotional is you’ve got to match their energy and intensity, and to their credit, they jumped on us early.”

Just when it looked like the Saints were going to be able to tie and take the lead, the Bulldogs ripped off a flurry of three goals in the first minute of the second quarter.

“It’s like any sport where you work real hard to get back in the game,” Tarring said. “Sometimes you get a little relaxed because you think the hard part is over and what you’ve really got to do is raise it up another notch, and we just didn’t do that.”

Lester credited sophomore Jimmy Cahill for taking control of the faceoffs during the three-goal burst.

“Our faceoff guy, Jimmy Cahill — I think he’s a warrior,” Lester said. “I think he’s one of the best face-off men in the country. His percentage is probably above 70 percent this year.”

Saints junior attackman Owen Van Arsdale slowed the bleeding with a goal at the 7:05 mark of the second quarter and junior midfielder Chapin Speidel notched another goal at the 2:06 mark, but two additional scores by St. Albans sandwiched in between the Saints’ goals gave the Bulldogs a comfortable 8-4 halftime lead.

St. Anne’s twice appeared set to make runs in the second half to overcome its deficit. Speidel’s second straight goal at the 9:53 mark of the third period drew the Saints back to within three, but two straight goals by St. Albans senior Jack Balaban stretched out the Bulldogs’ lead to 10-5.

St. Anne’s cut the margin back to three twice in the fourth quarter but could never get any closer. Junior attackman Michael Morris got the scoring started in the fourth at the 10:46 mark. Sophomore midfielder Connor McCullough recorded two goals in a row with 4:43 and 2:45 left to pull to within 11-8, but a goal only a few seconds later by the Bulldogs put the Saints’ comeback hopes out of reach.

“We played well at the end but they’re too good of a team to fall that far behind — five goals going into the fourth quarter,” Tarring said.

“We’re still a team in transition as far as learning. The most important thing is we’ve got to learn about each other. We’ve got to learn what we can do and we’ve got to build on our strengths.”

St. Anne’s plays today at home against Penn Charter at 3:30 p.m.