Young Boys’ Lacrosse Team Starts the Season Even, 2-2

Big Red boys’ lacrosse split a two-game set over the weekend, cruising past BB&N 14-4 at home on Friday and falling to Taft 7-16 at Tufts University on Saturday. Including yesterday’s contest against Avon (a 3-12 loss), the team now owns a 2-2 record.Although the boys easily took care of business during their home opener, Taft exposed Big Red’s weaknesses the following day in Boston. Taft is currently ranked #1 in New England on the website laxpower.com, while Exeter is ranked #28.“We should have pulled away earlier against BB&N,” lower Jason Corcoran said, “but we had some trouble with our clears, and that became very evident during the Taft game.”Despite the lopsided score line, Exeter actually led for the majority of the first half against Taft and faced a very slim deficit going into halftime. It was only later in the game that the Rhinos jumped on a number of Big Red errors to blow the game wide open.“The rain made it difficult to make accurate passes at times, and they were able to pick off some sloppy passes and capitalize in the second half,” Corcoran said.Senior co-captain David Ayscue seemed optimistic for the remainder of the season despite the tough loss.“It sounds weird when you look at the score, but we really could have won that game,” Ayscue said. “We outplayed Taft for most of the first half, and it could have ended differently had we just sustained our level of play.”Unfortunately, Taft’s strong midfield soon imposed their will upon the game and dictated play while also managing to keep the Big Red attack in check. With multiple players on the opposing team already committed to high-end Division I programs such as Virginia and Cornell, the fixture was a tough assignment for an inexperienced, young Exeter squad just three games into the season.“They managed to keep [lower] Jimmy [Young], and offense runs through him, so that made it tough to start anything in their zone,” Corcoran said.Big Red’s congested schedule continues this weekend, as the boys will play their fifth and sixth games in ten days and attempt to rebound from the demoralizing defeat against Avon. The team will travel to Cushing for a late game on Friday night and face off against Tilton the next day for a matinee at Phelps Stadium.This 2014 team may have its fair share of doubters after a number of high-profile seniors graduated in 2013, but last year’s team also fell to Taft, as well as Bridgton and Avon, very early in the season.The slow start was quickly forgotten, however, after the boys went on a tear to win 13 of their remaining 15 games, only losing at Brewster and Deerfield. The veterans remaining from that season will know that this one is far from over.