YARMOUTH — For large stretches of Wednesday night’s boys’ lacrosse game, Cape Elizabeth didn’t play well as usual.
And yet the two-time defending Class A champion Capers still left Yarmouth with eight-goal victory against the Class B favorite.
Cape Elizabeth shot to a 6-1 lead after one quarter, then broke the game open with five fourth-quarter goals in a 14-6 win – its eighth straight this year and its 14th in a row dating to last year.
“I think we played really well in the first quarter and fourth quarter, and that’s what’s really important,” said Ben Raymond, the Capers’ longtime coach. “We just talked about keeping our focus on the little things in the middle portion of the game.”
The tone was set in the first quarter, when five players scored for Cape. Keegan Lathrop struck twice, while Connor Goss, Nick Laughlin, Tom Hennessey and Sam Cochran all finished once.
“A lot of teams try to shut off Keegan and Sam, because they’re our top scorers, but really, everyone can put the ball in the back of the net for us,” said Laughlin.
The Clippers (5-2) drew within 7-3 at halftime, thanks to goals from Colter Olson and Matt Cain late in the second quarter. Then, after the Capers stretched the lead back to six early in the third, Yarmouth got goal from Aksel Yeo and Killian Marsh to make it 9-5.
But Cape Elizabeth flipped the switch at the start of the final quarter, as Laughlin, Dimitri Coupe, Alex van Huystee and Cochran scored in a span of just over three minutes.
Bobby Offit then became the ninth Cape player to score (defenseman Colin Blackburn got in on the fun with a third-quarter goal).
“One of the nicest things about this team is everybody does have the ability to score,” Raymond said. “When we share the ball, the offense looks really good.
“This gives us confidence. The difference between this year’s team and last year’s team is that instead of three guys who are really, really good, we have eight guys who are good.”
Sebastian Moon won 16 of 21 faceoffs and Michael Foley made four saves for the Capers.
Yarmouth got two goals apiece from Olson and Yeo. Freshman goalie Will Redfield made 14 saves, but the Clippers’ hopes were stymied by 24 turnovers, many of them unforced.
“We had too many errors throughout the whole game,” said Clippers Coach Jon Miller. “We made too mistakes that killed our opportunities to score. They do play aggressive on D, but a lot of the mistakes were self-inflicted. Tomorrow (in practice), I think we’re going to pass and throw for two hours. I’m not kidding.
“We always circle games like this during the regular season, but our ultimate goal is to win a state championship, and that’s what we’re going to try to do. We have a strong team and I think we’ll rebound from this loss.”
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