Souhegan boys lacrosse falls to Boston College High (video)

BOSTON - Steve Lydon didn't know much about the Souhegan High School boys lacrosse team before Monday's game.

It didn't take long for the Sabers to show the Boston College High coach what they were capable of doing, as they scored the game's first goal 50 seconds into the first quarter.

But as the contest wore on, the Eagles depth won out, as they outscored Souhegan 9-1 in the second half of a 17-5 win.

"They came out here wanting to challenge themselves with some good competition," Lydon said. "They were out here early and they were going to give us a good effort. All the way through the first half, it was a battle.

"It's always tough when you're feeling out a team. You're not familiar with how they want to play. I thought they played great. We've got a couple of guys who are playmakers."

The top playmaker for the Eagles (3-1) was AJ Kucinski, who finished the day with seven goals and five assists. Andrew Helfrich added four goals and Nick Boozang chipped in with a goal and three assists.

Souhegan (2-2) got two goals and two assists from Joe Nutting, while Zach Bossi also had two goals and added an assist. Robert Duarte also scored and Alex Burnley made nine saves.

"We played pretty hard, we're just not as deep," Souhegan coach Brad Bishop said. "He's running six, seven guys out of the midfield and we're running three. It gets tough to run with them at the end of the game and we just died a little bit. They went on a run.

"It's a good test for us. In the long run, we’ll learn a lot from the film. This will benefit us."

The Sabers started the game on the right foot, as Tim Vinton won the faceoff for Souhegan and BC High's Will Bowen was called for a slash just 39 seconds into the game. Souhegan capitalized, as Bossi found Nutting alone in front of the goal to give the Sabers a 1-0 lead 50 seconds into the game.

The Eagles didn't take too long to answer, as Kucinski found Helfrich for a game-tying goal with 9:04 left in the quarter, and Kucinski scored three of his own over the next six minutes to put BC High up 4-1.

The teams traded goals in the next minute to make it a 5-2 lead for the Eagles. It appeared to be a three-goal game going to the second, but a BC High turnover set up another goal by Nutting with 10 seconds left in the quarter to make it 5-3.

"We had an idea of who their best players were going to be and we knew what we wanted to do to try to limit them," Lydon said. "You don't know how they're going to respond."

The Eagles found those ways to limit Nutting, Bossi and Brendan Cray, who was held scoreless after having a 10-point game against Nashua South on Saturday. A goal by Duarte made it 7-4 with 3:21 left in the second half, but BC High would score the next nine goals in a row, taking a 16-4 lead early in the fourth quarter.

"We tried some defensive schemes that were different than normal and our guys just weren't adapting to it because we're so young on defense," Bishop said. "Hopefully with a little more practice, we'll pick it up and play better."

Souhegan won't have much time to regroup, as the Sabers head to Salem on Tuesday.