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# Mason leads second-half surge as Goffstown boys lacrosse beats Windham in D2 playoffs
- URL: https://www.nh-highschoolsports.com/mason-leads-second-half-surge-as-goffstown-boys-lacrosse-beats-windham-in-d2-playoffs/
- Published: 2019-05-31T12:00:03.000Z
- Updated: 2019-05-31T12:00:03.000Z
- Description: GOFFSTOWN - Nick Mason tried to put the Goffstown High School boys lacrosse team on his shoulders during the first half of Thursday's Division II preliminary-round game against Windham. But at halftime, with the Grizzlies down a goal after trailing the entire half, Goffstown coach Josh Lewis reminde
- Author: Joe Marchilena
- Tags: Division II, boys lacrosse, Goffstown, slider, Windham, #wp, #wp-post, #Import 2026-08-18 04:44

GOFFSTOWN - Nick Mason tried to put the Goffstown High School boys lacrosse team on his shoulders during the first half of Thursday's Division II preliminary-round game against Windham.

But at halftime, with the Grizzlies down a goal after trailing the entire half, Goffstown coach Josh Lewis reminded his senior middie that's not where they needed to be.

Instead, in the third quarter, Mason settled back into the Grizzlies offense, and once they started moving the ball around, the looks opened right up.

Mason scored three of his game-high five goals in a span of 3:06 in the third quarter, part of a 4-0 run that helped No. 5 Goffstown take its first lead of the day and the Grizzlies held off No. 12 Windham in the fourth quarter for an 11-7 win. Goffstown moves on to the D2 quarterfinals, where it will play at No. 4 Hollis Brookline, which defeated No. 13 Bow 18-5, on Saturday.

"I felt like in the second quarter, I was trying to take it all on my shoulders and kept getting stripped," Mason said. "I kept getting frustrated, forcing passes, forcing some shots, and I trusted my teammates a little more in the third. I got some open shots, got my hands free."

Down 6-4 midway through the third, Mason ripped a shot high into the net to cut the lead to one with 7:06 remaining in the frame, then added another goal almost from the same spot to tie it up 1:16 later. The Grizzlies won the faceoff, and while Windham was able to get the ball back, the Jaguars were unable to clear.

Goffstown (13-4, ARV in the NHHSS Coaches Poll) took advantage, as Mason scored again, and after another faceoff win, Griffin Cook scored eight seconds later to make it 8-6.

"I talked to (Mason) at halftime and I said ‘everyone knows what you do,’" Lewis said. "That’s why they keep stripping you. As long as they sandwich you, you’re not getting anywhere, and they did that well. When you play your game, you’re not going to win. You need to play our game.

"Second half, he went out, picked his head up, started looking to draw and dump, and we got that movement we’re looking for on the offensive end. That enabled him to keep going because everybody has shuffled off to where the ball was."

Cook added three goals for the Grizzlies and Eric Dubois also had two while Austin Taylor had a goal and an assist and Andrew McCarthy had two assists.

Jake Rust also had five goals to lead Windham (8-8), including one early in the fourth quarter where he fought off two Goffstown defenders to make it a one-goal game with 9:31 to play. But the Grizzlies won the ensuing faceoff and Dubois scored just 15 seconds later to crush any momentum the Jaguars might have had.

"You want to talk about taking the wind out of someone’s sails," Lewis said. "All of a sudden, it’s within one goal. Momentum is swinging in their favor, and once we get that goal so quick, it stops the wind entirely. I would say that definitely had an impact."

Rust scored Windham's first goal of the game, putting the Jaguars on top 2:05 into the game and Alek Tunik made it 2-0 with 5:43 left in the first quarter.

"That’s the level of intensity we want to come out with in most games, we’ve just got to keep it going," Windham coach Joe Young said. "It was a couple of minutes in the third when we let the wheels fall off the wagon."

The lead grew to 3-0 just 1:26 into the second on Rust's second goal of the game, but Goffstown came back to tie it 4-4 with 1:10 remaining in the half. But after a Grizzlies turnover, Nate Levine (goal, two assist) found the back of the net for Windham with 15.8 seconds left to make it 5-4 at the break.

Rust netted another goal to open the third, this time scoring 19 seconds in to give the Jaguars a 6-4 lead, and after winning the ensuing faceoff, it seemed like Windham started to slow things down.

"They got it in their heads in the third that they needed to have those long possessions and kill the clock instead of just play their game," Young said. "We had a lull of space and time where we forget what’s going on and that’s what happened. It would have been nice to keep pressing and doing our thing, but it didn’t work out that way."