DANVERS — Anthony Nardella has brought some new systems and terminology to the Beverly High boys lacrosse program this season — and his Panthers are certainly abiding by what their new head coach has been teaching them.
Nardella wants his players to get ‘gold medal shots’ by getting to good spots in the offensive end and putting the ball in the opponent’s net. He talks of “shooting to get hot, shooting to stay hot”. He’s preached the importance of not only coming up with ground balls but transitioning from defensive-to-offense quickly and getting the sphere into the sticks of his best offensive players.
Those factors all came into play during Monday’s 13-10 triumph over host Danvers at Deering Stadium, in which the Orange-and-Black overcame an early 4-goal lead, then broke open a tie game to open the fourth quarter by scoring five times in the final quarter.
“Drawing slides and finding the open guy; that’s really our whole offense,” said senior captain Will Burgess, who had a goal and three assists while surpassing 100 points for his career. “It’s about beating the first man, looking for the mirror, looking for the back door (X-man creeping up), and just finding seams.
“That’s how we got a lot of goals today.”
Burgess’s partner in crime, fellow senior captain Chris McKie, was the prime beneficiary of that. The attackman ripped home a game-best five goals, with four of those coming in the second half. His fifth and final tally, coming with 5:51 to go, proved to be the game-winner.
“I definitely felt hot,” said McKie, who will continue to play next year at Southern New Hampshire College. “I definitely felt like every time I got the ball, I was looking to score. And I got some great passes from Will.”
“He’s my guy,” Burgess said of McKie. “Chris is always in the right spot; I beat my guy and he’s right there. I’m got some great chem with him; it’s been that way all year.”
It’s the first time this season that Beverly (now 7-5 overall) has had a three-game winning streak. The Panthers also beat Danvers in both of their meetings this spring.
“One spark got us going when we were down (7-3 early in the second half),” said Nardella. “Then we started getting stops defensively, had a 2-minute locked in penalty against us that we scored on without giving up a goal, and things took off from there.”
Danvers (now 6-8) had six goals in the first quarter alone and led by three after 12 minutes. But after faceoff ace Evan Roach — who had won 10-of-13 draws — was injured and had to leave the game in the second quarter, the Falcons weren’t able to possess the ball as much and the tide slowly but surely turned against them.
“We just didn’t keep our foot on the gas to keep that edge and continue to put goals in,” said head coach Dan Ritchie. “If you can extend a 4-goal game to 5-, 6- or even 7-goal lead, that’s just a different game overall. And losing Evan definitely hurt … we weren’t going to get as many possessions as we normally would with Evan in there, and that’s what we value: getting possession of the ball, scoring and keeping the pressure on.
“We didn’t keep our head on a swivel defensively,” added Ritchie. “And credit to Beverly; they were able to get their guys going. That No. 15 (McKie) really got hot.”
Goaltender Connor Dembowski did what he could to keep the Panthers at bay, stopping 16 shots.
Offensively, captain Cooper Dunham led the Blue-and-White with four goals and two assists; he scored to make it 8-8 late in the third quarter. Sophomore Tyler Moody also scored four times with one assist; captain Mason Gadbois had a goal and two helpers; Ben Campbell had two goals and two assists; and Roach, Hunter DeDominics and long pole Owen Swanton each had one assist.
Beverly, which held the Falcons to four goals over the final 36 minutes of play, got nine saves from goalie Graham Ferretti — plus two more huge stops late in the first half from senior defender Matt Rex on back-to-back plays when the hosts had two clear shots at an open net.
“From the second quarter on we made a lot of hidden plays that don’t show up in the scorebook, big plays that allowed us to maintain possession, keep our offense in rhythm and keep the ball out of their hands,” said Nardella, citing not only Rex but long pole Will Johnson (who had an assist) and defensive middies Max Meicher and Ryan Everett for their unsung contributions.The rest of Beverly’s scoring came off the sticks of George Frost (3, plus 1 assist), Ridley Acheson (2), defender Coby Malionek and freshman Bodie Wagner.