Windham avoids shutout against Yarmouth in boys' lacrosse scrimmage

By Matt Pascarella

The Windham High varsity boys’ lacrosse team suited up for a preseason scrimmage against Yarmouth, but came out on the wrong end, falling 16-2 against Yarmouth on Monday, April 14 at Yarmouth High School.

Windham senior Lukas Hammond looks to pass during a
preseason boys' lacrosse scrimmage against Yarmouth at
Yarmouth High School on Monday, April 14.
PHOTO BY MATT PASCARELLA

Yarmouth came out very strong in the scrimmage and scored several goals in the first half. The Eagles kept at it, and scored twice in the second half, but it wasn’t enough against Yarmouth.

Windham plays its first regular season boys’ lacrosse game on Thursday, April 17 against Scarborough.

“We just got to move on and not fixate on this loss,” said Windham sophomore Luke Drottar. “We have a lot of potential; a lot of these guys are pretty good. I think we’ll bounce back. I think just more preparation and practice will help a lot. On the offensive side I think we swung the ball pretty well, on the defensive side we definitely slid our feet a lot better than our last scrimmage.”

Yarmouth came out strong and scored five goals in the first quarter. Windham still had plenty of time and kept their heads up early in the game.

While Windham remained intense, Yarmouth’s offense kept on the attack. Windham took several shots at goal but Yarmouth led at halftime, 12-0.

“I think we’ve got to get after it man down, man up, cutting toward the ball,” said Windham sophomore Tegan Perkins. “For defense, we got to be more talking and for our second slide, we just got to pitch it and have that all day and be really physical in slides. I think the game started to fall when we started getting chippy, when kids would drop a ball or make a bad pass and just put their heads down. I think our quick passes were really good and our first slide was mostly there every time; our right and left were there every time. We had a few guys who were super physical and always there and a couple guys who were just super loud, and it helped to have our goalie really loud. Caden Valle stepped up in goal.”

In the second half, Drottar intercepted a Yarmouth pass and scored.

Windham continued to take shots at the Yarmouth goalie, which resulted in freshman Sean Lebel scoring late in the fourth quarter.

“We got to play within the rules of the game,” said Windham varsity boys’ lacrosse coach Peter Small. “We were playing ‘chippy’ (overly aggressive) beyond the rules of the game. I want us to play aggressive but within the rules of the game. As we started to get frustrated, we started to play chippy and get outside our head and stopped playing the way we think and know we should play. Our skill level is there; our foot movement on defense was pretty good, at times our sticks were really good; on the offensive side we can move in position, and we can move the ball really well.”

Small said that this loss shows everyone from coaches down to players needs to lock in. As they started to put pieces together of people who haven’t played together, communication needs to happen more.

He said the WHS team’s eyes are wider open now to the pace at which the game needs to be played. According to Small, they need to put those pieces together and move in a concerted 10 guys on the field entering the regular season.

Their next home game for Windham is at 6:45 p.m. Tuesday, April 29 against Biddeford. <