Walpole Rebels Lacrosse defeated Franklin High School 8-3 in the Creator’s Cup final to repeat as tournament champions on April 22. Walpole advanced to the championship game of the tournament for the second straight season by defeating St. John’s Prep 12-8, the same team they beat in last year’s title game.
“Coming into the game I think everyone came in with the mindset of showing people what level we could play at,” said senior captain Darragh Fahey. “Coming off two losses to start the season, we know that we needed to play big and get a win.”
The championship game was a battle between two top ranked teams in the state: Walpole(14) and Franklin(12). Franklin is led by top scorer Eric Civetti, a junior attackman who is committed to Rutgers and is ranked as one of the top attackmen in the state.
“Without going into a ton of detail, we had some talks with [Robert Colburn],” Walpole head coach Jason Andalo said on preparing for Civetti. “We challenged him and the rest of the defense at the end of practice, and they responded.”
Walpole held Civetti scoreless with just two assist thanks to Walpole’s top defender, senior captain and Franklin Pierce commit Robert Colburn.
“I’m pretty excited and happy with how we played. Defensively, we played very well. Franklin is a very talented team,” said Andalo.
Franklin scored first with a goal from Jake Davis, but Walpole responded with two quick goals from senior captains Darragh Fahey and Ryan Birch to gain the lead. Birch scored again with six seconds left in the quarter to extend Walpole’s lead to two.
“Scoring late in quarters is big,” said Andalo. “It puts a little bit of momentum into the next quarter. Those things can be deflating for the opponent.”
Walpole opened up the second quarter with a quick goal by Fahey followed by a goal from junior Conor Foley to make the score 5-1 heading into the third quarter. Senior captain Cullen McGlynn opened up the third quarter with a quick score, which the Rebels offense followed with a stalling strategy until senior Cam Scales scored two goals late in the game to finalize the score at 8-3.
“They’ve got some guys on the offensive end who can put the ball in the cage,” said Andalo. “But I thought our guys like Kyle Smith and Rob Colburn and Pat Lanahan played great close defense. Joe McGrath in cage and our midfielders played great, too.”
The Rebels have clinched a tournament berth and currently stand at 9-3 on the season.
(Photo/Tim Hoffman via http://timhoffman.zenfolio.com)