FRANKLIN, Mass. - The run is over for the Franklin boys’ lacrosse team. It has been a historic season with the Panthers going further than any team in the program’s history, but on Tuesday night Catholic Memorial shut down the Franklin offense and battled back in the fourth quarter to end the Panthers season in the semifinal, 7-6.
“We tried to force some issues and made some mistakes but credit to CM because they forced us into some of those bad decisions,” said Franklin coach Lou Verrochi. “Everything is a little bit tighter at this level and this stage of the season.”
CM jumped out to a 1-0 lead with 2:19 left in the first quarter, but Franklin responded, as they had in the previous round, with two quick goals in the second. Freshman Eric Civetti tied the game just 23 seconds into the quarter off an assist from Kyle Lundgren and then Civetti picked up an assist on a goal by Austin Kent.
Civetti then provided a pair of highlight reel plays. First, he extended the lead to 3-1 with a goal as he was falling down into the middle of the CM defense. After CM scored to cut the lead to one, Civetti provided the pass of the season with a behind the back look from the corner of the cage across the crease to a wide open Justin Miller.
The lead would not last to halftime. The Knights scored twice in the final minute of the second quarter, including a goal by Tyler Bogart with just six seconds on the clock.
Bogart, a UMass-commit and CM’s top attacker, was limited to just two goals in the game in a one-on-one battle with senior Alec Borkowski that the Franklin defender won most of the night.
“Alec is unbelievable,” said Verrocxhi. “That’s one of the best attack men in the state and he just shut him down. One of the goals wasn’t even Alec’s fault, I think Sean Lockhart had switched off on him.”
Cosolito, who scored a hat trick for CM including the winner in the fourth quarter, said, “Their defense was great. No. 3 on their team (Alec Borkowski), I’ve never seen a kid take the ball away from people so many times.”
The CM defense was equally stout and Vail only managed one shot off the crossbar in the third quarter. After six goals against Xaverian in the quarters, the Hockomock MVP was held scoreless by Kam Gingras.
Verrochi explained, “We just didn’t generate any offense and hats off to them because I think they played us really tough defensively. They didn’t let Jack get unwound and I thought No. 10 (Kam Gingras) played an excellent game against him.”
Kent gave Franklin the lead in the third quarter, but the Panthers missed out on several opportunities with a man-up to try and extend the lead. Franklin was 0-4 on man-ups in the second half.
In the fourth, CM had a chance to tie very early on when D.J. Shea (nine saves) had his clearance intercepted but the Knights missed a wide open net. After two chances with a man-up, Franklin surrendered the lead on two goal in little more than a minute.
The Panthers finally got something on offense shortly after giving up the lead when Lundgren stepped into space and unleashed a rip that bounced in to make it 6-6.
With 2:45 left in the game, Cosolito made it a hat trick when he spun past his man at the post and scored from close-range. He said, “We all knew it was going to be a scrappy goal that’s what it ended up being at the end.”
CM coach Kevin Lynch added, “We got some good scouts on them and the scout was that they take the ball away a lot and make it difficult to run our offense and do what we want to do. We really had to work hard for everything that we got tonight. They were all scrappy, ugly goals, but we’ll take them.”
There was obvious disappointment on the Franklin bench after the game, but the Panthers had made history just getting to this round and taking CM to the wire was a sign of just where the program now stands.
“I hope the underclassmen understand what they have to do in the offseason to prepare for next year and we can have another run like this,” said Verrochi. “It’s disappointing and we would have loved to go to the final but…It was an excellent year.”
The packed house at Pisini Field included a number of youth players and Verrochi is hopeful that watching the Panthers at this stage of the tournament will encourage more talent to come through the program.
He said, “The youth coaches, everybody in the town, are behind us. I think the younger kids watching the game get turned on by it and it generates some interest from those kids.”
Josh Perry can be contacted at [email protected] and followed on Twitter at @Josh_Perry10.