Souhegan boys lacrosse hangs on for win over Exeter

AMHERST – The Souhegan High School boys lacrosse team continued its trend Friday of getting out to a fast start against Exeter.

Good thing for the Sabers they did, or else what ended up as their fourth win in a row might have slipped away.

Souhegan jumped out to leads of 4-0 and 8-3 in the first half, but had to sweat out a 15-13 victory, as the Blue Hawks refused to go away.

“We came out strong like we wanted to, and like we have in the past few games,” Souhegan coach Brad Bishop said. “We gave up a couple of unfortunate ones. It was more errors that we had clearing things. We had a couple bad bounces, but overall we played really well, which was good to see.”

Blake Brunely led the Sabers (9-4) with three goals and three assists while Mack Walker also had three goals and added two helpers and Joe Nutting had a hat trick and assisted on another. It was Nutting’s tough goal with 4:40 to play the helped secure the win for the Sabers.

After Exeter (6-6) had cut the lead to two with 1:39 left in the third quarter, Souhegan scored twice in the final minute, including a goal with 9.8 seconds left by Walker, to go up 14-10 with 12 minutes to go.

Neither team could get much going early in the fourth, as field conditions began to deteriorate due to the rain. The Blue Hawks scored three goals in a span of 1:33, pulling within one on a goal by Bradley Simas (three goals, one assist) with 6:13 to play.

The Sabers took a timeout after the goal and Nutting won the faceoff, allowing Souhegan to work a little clock before his third goal put the Sabers back up by two goals.

“I think we did really well on stopping their best thing, which is their faceoffs,” Bishop said. “Sean Penna is an incredible faceoff guy, and Joe Nutting, who this was his second game taking faceoffs for us. I think he took 17 and lost 12, over 50 percent against Penna is pretty good.”

Exeter got five goals and two assists from Buddy Carr while Jack Carr added three goals and an assist. Cole Finerty made 11 saves for the Blue Hawks, but it was the team defense early that led to the loss.

“Defensively, it was not one of our better efforts,” Exeter coach Gerry Holly said. “We looked slow in the defensive end and we ball-watched a little bit. We let them jump out to a 4-0 lead and they’re a good team. It’s hard to battle back from that. I’m glad our guys kept battling, but it’s hard being down the whole game.”

Brunley put Souhegan on the board a little more than three minutes into the game and Walker’s goal with 6:37 left in the opening quarter started the Sabers on a run of three goals in 1:47 to make it 4-0. On the other, Souhegan goalie Nick King (eight saves) came up with a couple of big saves when Exeter did get opportunities.

Souhegan went up 5-2 early in the second quarter and pushed the lead to 8-3 with 4:39 left in the half thanks to back-to-back goals by Mitch Hale and Nutting just 30 seconds apart. The Sabers led 10-6 at the break but the Blue Hawks began chipping away after halftime.

The second half for Exeter was more about playing better than making adjustments.

“I think it was a matter of our guys trying to be a bit more focused and not ball-watching in the defensive end,” Holly said. “Offensively, we tried to spread it out a little, but we didn’t make too many adjustments. We’re two evenly matched teams and it’s just a matter of which team comes out and played better. They did that.”

The teams will both play Bishop Guertin next, as Souhegan hosts the Cardinals at 4 p.m. on Monday and Exeter travels to Nashua for a 7 p.m. start on Thursday.