CANTON, Mass. - The Bulldogs have already qualified for the playoffs, but unlike most sports winning percentage alone will not decide where Canton ends up being seeded in the Div. 2 South tournament. Heading into the final couple of games of the regular season, Canton coach Bill Bendell knew that the Davenport champions needed to boost their resumes to get the support of coaches.
Thursday evening’s game with Medway will not help the Bulldogs, after Canton lost a 4-1 lead in the second half and eventually fell 6-5 to the Mustangs at WWII Veterans Memorial Stadium.
“We need to impress some people with non-conference wins and build our resume to improve our seed for playoffs and we hurt ourselves,” said Bendell. This game we really needed.”
Canton (10-6)jumped out to a 2-0 lead early in the first quarter and it looked as though the Bulldogs may be able to run away with a comfortable win. Sophomore Shaun Kirby opened the scoring off a good diagonal skip pass by Aidan Carr to the edge of the crease. Two minutes later, Ben O’Neill doubled the lead with a rip that snuck inside the far post.
The game slowed down with both teams struggling to find space inside the opposing defenses and forced to settle for outside shots. Medway cut the lead to one with 3:26 left in the first when Ryan Ferns beat his man with power and scored from close range.
The second quarter was all Mustangs, except for Canton goalie Chris Albert. The junior made seven of his 14 saves in the second and time after time stymied Medway attackers with close-range blocks and quick reactions. His play enabled Canton to extend the lead when Paul Swart made a great catch in traffic and managed to finish.
“I wish we could have played a little better offense for him but he played awesome,” said Bendell about his goalie. “He made a lot of clutch saves at the end to give us a chance to win.”
In the third quarter, O’Neill made it 4-1 inside the first two minutes, but Canton would then go more than 15 minutes without another goal. Mike Giacobbe cut the lead to two with a lefty rip and then with 6:35 left in the third Wenzel got his first of the game in transition off an assist by Greg Danehy.
Bendell tried to explain the Bulldogs struggles on offense. He said, “They sat in that zone and we expected a little bit of zone, but some of the things we had found success with against previous zones weren’t there tonight. We were stuck in the mode of this works in practice and we were forcing bad passes.”
The Mustangs took the lead in the fourth quarter. Wenzel assisted on a goal by Ben Steinhoff just 42 seconds into the final quarter and then with 9:36 to play Eric Donovan took a feed from Ferns and tipped it to make it 5-4.
“Medway played their butts off,” said Bendell. “A lot of times high school kids will look at the record and say oh this is going to be an easy win…They came out and showed us they were good.”
Canton did not fold and O’Neill again was able to beat his man and then picked out Kirby with a perfect pass right across the face of goal to make it 5-5 with 6:41 to play.
Neither team was able to create a great scoring opportunity in the final five minutes of the game and it headed to overtime. Medway won the first possession but was unable to create a chance. Canton took the ball down and had a good shot saved and then turned it over.
After a timeout, Medway tried to bring the ball up the field only for the Canton defense to come through and force a turnover. The Bulldogs tried to attack with speed rather than call timeout and got a point-blank look only to be denied by Tanner Pearl (nine saves).
Bendell said, “We told these guys that we don’t like to call timeout in those situations and let them play it and we had a good look and they saved it and then they cleared it.”
Albert made a big save with his chest on a bouncing shot and then got his stick to a rip by Giacobbe that was arrowing inside the post. Medway kept possession and swung the ball around to Wenzel who went at his defender and then fired a quick-release shot that beat Albert and ended the game.
“I know he feels bad but that was a good hard shot to a good location, so we can’t expect him to make that save,” said Bendell about Albert’s effort in overtime.
The loss was disappointing and will hurt Canton’s chances of moving up in seeding, but Bendell still expects the league champs to cause teams problems in the playoffs.
“I still think the ceiling is high for us,” he said, “and hopefully we’ll learn from this…I think we will.”
Canton takes on Abington in the regular season finale on Tuesday.
Josh Perry can be contacted at [email protected] and followed on Twitter at @Josh_Perry10.