Boys’ Lacrosse Falls Short Versus Loomis
The boys’ lacrosse team’s seven game winning streak came to an end on Saturday after having not lost since the first of April. They squared off against a tough opponent in Loomis Chaffee, who were 6-2 entering the contest on Saturday. Both teams entered the competition with momentum.
Exeter looked to continue their reign over their competition, but Loomis had their own motivation. Coming off a tough loss to Salisbury and a huge win over Deerfield, the first in ten years, Loomis was ready to go the distance.
It was a very tight first half; both Exeter and Loomis created scoring chances. Loomis took an early 2-1 lead, but Exeter continued pressuring the Pelicans on both ends of the field. Loomis seemed to catch on to Exeter’s style of play and started to find cracks. As Loomis’s confidence against Big Red grew, their lead did as well.
Despite being down 7-2 with less than ten minutes left in regulation, Exeter never gave up. After some great defensive work, Exeter broke into the offensive zone and managed to put one in the jar—7-3. They were starting to gain momentum.
Loomis responded strongly and quickly chalked up two additional goals before the horn sounded and won 9-3. Exeter was stopped in their tracks as their streak was snapped.
Post-graduate Chris Dumont offered insight on the team’s mentality with the streak. “I mean honestly, we weren’t really thinking about our win streak that much. We were taking things one game at a time,” he said. “It was definitely a bummer to lose like that, especially at home.”
Dumont did find silver lining in the loss, though. “I think [the loss] will only motivate us to play better in the future,” he said.
As the team enters the second half of its season, they will have to find motivation away from Phelps Stadium. With only seven games left on their schedule, the boys will be on the road for five of those games. Beginning with Brewster on Wednesday, a historically dominant program, the team will look to refine their game in hopes to rebound from the tough loss to Loomis.
“We all agreed to go harder in practice,” Dumont said.
Upper defenseman Alex Farley agreed with Dumont and spoke about some of the problems the team faced on Saturday. “We made a lot of mistakes on both sides of the ball,” Farley said. “But it’s nothing we can’t fix.”
The loss seemed to serve as a bit of a wakeup call for the team, that there is still plenty of lacrosse to be played—against good teams, too. Looking ahead, Exeter is on the road against Brewster, Tabor, and Kimball Union before returning to the 03833 to take on NMH on the 9th of May.