St. Thomas boys lacrosse comes all the way back to beat Winnacunnet

HAMPTON – As the fourth quarter was quickly approaching, the St. Thomas Aquinas High School boys lacrosse team was in desperate need to reverse its fortunes, facing a five-goal deficit against Winnacunnet.

Once Aidan Morrison lit that initial spark to break a 10-minute scoring drought, there was no slowing the Saints down.

Trailing 8-3, St. Thomas went on a 5-0 run in the final 4:38 of the third quarter to tie the game and Finley De Tolla’s game-winning goal with 34.5 seconds left in regulation helped seal a 10-9 Division II victory on Alumni Field.

“We’ve been just grinding the whole week and that comeback just showed we’ve had this in us the whole time and we just got to play like that the whole game,” St. Thomas’ Luke Daly said. “Everyone just got dialed in. Our coach gave us a good talk in the huddle and told us to play our game and get out of our heads. We have the skill and the talent to do so.”

St. Thomas (7-4) is playing its best lacrosse of the season by winning six of its past seven games following a 1-3 start. De Tolla led the Saints with three goals while Morrison, Jackson Estes and Ryan Resch netted two goals apiece.

“About halfway through the third quarter we had a timeout there, talked about it a bit, and saw an energy shift from there and the offense scored a couple of goals to kind of juice the boys up,” Estes said. “When we scored those five straight that was like when we felt we were going to win this.”

Winnacunnet (7-3) broke a 3-3 tie when Beckett Rath (three goals) and Alec Mitchell each scored in the final 42 seconds of the first half. The Warriors carried that momentum into the third quarter when Rath, Mitchell and Brian McCown all scored to give Winnacunnet an 8-3 lead.

After Morrison’s goal finally gave St. Thomas some hope, the Saints took over ball control and took advantage when Estes scored, and he followed that by curling around the net to find Resch for a goal. De Tolla then found Morrison for a goal and Resch then evened the game at 8-8 with 3.3 seconds left in the third quarter.

“We just found some energy finally. We were pretty lethargic for two and a half quarters and we were pretty flat until midway through the third,” St. Thomas coach Scott Singer said. “Finally we found some pride and heart and decided to work hard and then put together a quarter and half and luckily that was good enough to win.”

Estes ripped a laser past Winnacunnet goalie Joel Williams (11 saves) to give St. Thomas a 9-8 lead three minutes into the fourth quarter and the Saints nursed that lead until McCown stole the ball and raced down the field to beat St. Thomas goalie Jake More (eight saves) to tie the game at 9-9 with 3:52 left in regulation.

After Rath ripped off an errant shot, the Saints gained possession, killed the clock, and De Tolla spun around with his shot past Williams for the game winner.

“There wasn’t much time left, I just got it and went, luckily the shot was there and I hit it,” De Tolla said. “I kind of shook my guy off and it was pretty open.”

The win was huge for St. Thomas after having its five-game winning streak snapped via a 13-12 loss Wednesday to Hollis Brookline.

“We needed a game like this. We’ve lost three one goal games and all of them we’ve been up in the fourth so we’ve blown three games,” Singer said. “This is a win we can hopefully build on.”