Cape Elizabeth 9

Yarmouth 12

New year, same result.

Last season, the Cape Elizabeth boys lacrosse team won the Class B Western championship, but was upended by Yarmouth in the state championship game.

On Saturday, the Capers went into Portland’s Fitzpatrick Stadium looking to avenge that loss and wrest the crown from the Clippers.

And throughout the first half, the Capers gave the Clippers everything they could handle. However, Yarmouth came out firing in the third quarter, scoring five goals to turn a 6-5 lead into an 11-6 lead, which was enough to seal the eventual 12-9 win, giving the Clippers their second straight Class B state lacrosse championship.

“We played pretty well, but we had a tough third quarter. Other than that, we worked hard and did a good job. We committed some turnovers in the third quarter that cost us,” Cape head coach Ben Raymond said after the game.

Raymond said the Capers had some trouble stopping Yarmouth’s transition game. “They scored some transition goals, that was really the difference. We threw the ball away a little bit, and they capitalized on that,” he said. “Obviously they’re very good, they have a lot of weapons out there.”

The Capers came out fired up to start the game and it showed, less than one minute into the game, junior Tom Foden got the Capers on the board when he crossed through traffic in front of the net and fired one past Yarmouth goalie Cam Woodworth to put Cape up 1-0 with 11:05 left in the first.

But it didn’t take Yarmouth long to net the equalizer. With 10:10 left in the first, the Clippers’ Evan Henry scored the first of his four goals to knot the score at one.

Cape had a good chance to retake the lead about midway through the quarter when Yarmouth took penalties for having too many men on the field and holding, but the Capers couldn’t take advantage of the penalties and the score remained tied.

There was a barrage of scoring right near the end of the quarter. With 1:42 left, Yarmouth took its first lead of the game as Henry fought through a crowd of defenders and scored to make it 2-1.

The Capers retied the game about a minute later as senior midfielder Ben Lydon found senior Cam Smith down by the net and Smith scored to tie the game at two with 48.4 seconds left.

Yarmouth took the momentum right back with just 10.6 seconds left to go in the first. Henry, unable to get through the Cape defense to get a clear shot, found teammate Luke Torres outside and Torres fired a low shot past Caper goalie Jack Roos to put Yarmouth up 3-2 at the end of the first.

The back-and-forth battle continued throughout the second quarter. With 10:49 left, Yarmouth went up 4-2 on a goal by Steve Petrovek, the first of three he scored in the game. “Petrovek had an outstanding day,” Raymond said after the game.

Cape cut the lead back to one on a nice play with 8:33 left before halftime. Ben Brewster got the ball downfield to Jon O’Hearn, who quickly found Mike Holden down by the net and Holden beat Woodworth to make the score 4-3.

The Clippers’ Rob Highland gave Yarmouth the two-goal lead once again with a leaping shot with 4:51 to go in the second. Thirteen seconds later, Smith got his second goal of the game as he scored as he was taking a hit to make it 5-4.

About a minute later, Henry got his third goal of the half, as he crossed in front of the Cape net until he managed to find an opening and scored to make it 6-4.

But the Capers got a huge goal late in the quarter. With just 16 seconds to go, Brewster got a pass over to Holden, and Holden scored his second goal of the half to make it 6-5.

But, that was as close as the Capers would get. Yarmouth started fast out of the break, scoring two goals in the first four minutes (Highland at 10:06 and Colby Shields at 8:37) to grab an 8-5 lead.

Cape did manage to get the deficit back down to two with 7:02 left as Foden got his second goal of the game as he was cutting through the middle to make it 8-6. But Yarmouth soon retook control of the game, extending its lead to 9-6 with 3:37 left on a goal from Petrovek.

That’s when Cape caught a really bad break. With 3:15 to go in the third, the Clippers’ Leo Oliva was called for a cross checking penalty, giving the Capers a man advantage for a minute. But not only were the Capers unable to score on the penalty, Highland scored a shorthanded goal for the Clippers to put them up 10-6 with 2:41 left. Yarmouth would add another goal with 18.7 seconds left in the quarter as Torres scored to make it 11-6.

Cape got two goals from Foden and one from Holden in the fourth quarter to make the game close, but Henry added one for Yarmouth, making the final score 12-9, giving the title to the Clippers for the second straight year.

Despite the tough end to the season, Raymond said he was proud of what his team accomplished this spring, though he admitted losing in the state title game was hard to take. “I told the kids before we came out we were definitely proud of what we accomplished so far, we still had one more thing we wanted to do. It just didn’t work out that way. “It’s tough losing to anybody in the state finals, no matter who it is. We’re still going to be pretty upset about it. It’s a tough thing to get here and not win.”