Foxboro High Boys Lacrosse to Much For Canton

After a disappointing out of league loss to Xaverian, the Foxborough Warriors had only one goal against the Canton Bulldogs and that was to get back to their winning ways with a 12-4 win Wednesday afternoon.

“Our team played good. We wanted to avenge the loss to Xaverian yesterday and I thought we came out playing,” Foxborough senior captain Jake Soccorso said.

The Warriors’ midfield were the impact players in their win over the Bulldogs. The midfield of Soccorso (3 goals, 3 assists), Drew McGeary (4 goals), and Anthony Fertita (2 goals and an assist) were responsible for nine of the team’s 12 goals and four assists as they led the Foxborough offensive attack.

“Those are guys that I need to play at that level. Today they did it..... I just hope they do it against the teams they need to do it against,” Foxborough head coach Matt Noone said.

McGeary was the first and only player to score in the opening quarter when he nailed a shot from the right from Tyler Ames to make it a 1-0 game with 8:00 left in the first.

With a new look offense, part of the Canton strategy was to try to target who the key players were going to be. After a fairly quiet opening quarter, it wasn't exactly clear who the Bulldogs were going to have to keep an eye on.

“We knew they were going to be good this year, but we just didn’t know who was going to be the shooters,” Canton head coach Bill Bendell said.

It became more clear in the second quarter when the Warriors' midfield made their mark starting with another goal from McGeary with the assist going to Soccorso with 10:53 left in the half. A third goal by McGeary with four minutes left in the half gave the young midfielder a hat trick before the half even ended.

Attacker Tyler Ames added on to the Warriors’ second quarter goal total after Brandon Lovely recovered the ball of a ground ball and found Ames for a break away goal only 85 seconds into the period.

Fertita made his impact around the middle of the game with an unassisted goal going to the top left corner with less than two minutes to play in the half followed by a score assisted by Soccorso with 9:51 left in the third.

A pair of goals from Soccorso including one with the Warriors a man up with 7:20 left in the period widened the lead as the Warriors' midfield continued to make life misrable for Canton. Fertita received an assists on the second Soccorso goal with 4:50 left in the third.

The Bulldogs finally got on the board with a score by Ben Lodge early in the third followed by another goal by Nick O’Conner with 3:46 left in the third.

Things got interesting late in the third. After a goal scored by Canton’s Matt Malloy late in the third, a flag was call on Foxborough goalie Greg Stamatov for taking out his mouth guard to talk to one of his defensemen. When Noone went to argue the call, another flag was thrown for unsportsmanlike conduct to put the Warriors down two men with 1:35 left in the third quarter.

In case playing down two players wasn’t enough, Alex Noonan was called for a slash to briefly give the Bulldogs an unlikely three man advantage. Miraculously enough the Warriors were able to hold off Canton to work their way back to full strength.

A final goal from Soccorso and a score from Ames near the goal line locked up a Foxborough win as the Bulldogs could only get a goal from Jake Paschal in the final quarter.

Kyle Sperzel also had a goal for the Warriors. Greg Stamatov had nine saves.

Despite the loss the Bulldogs had some positives coming out of the game, at least enough to keep Bendell optimistic about their next match up with the Warriors.

“I thought it was a competitive game. Even though they outplayed us.....I look forward to playing them again,” Bendell said.

The Warriors travel to Oliver Ames on April 13 while the Bulldogs travel to Sharon on April 12.