BY BRANDON WILFORE // MARCH 12, 2016 //

The Curry College men’s lacrosse team squeaked out a victory against visiting Norwich on Friday afternoon, 11-10. Curry only managed one goal in the second half, but a good first half was enough to get the job done.

The Colonels were in control of nearly the whole first half. Curry started the scoring early and often, with sophomore Jeffery Yates scoring first with 9:38 left in the first quarter. Curry then added a second goal with some flair courtesy of junior Brandon Flaim.

Flaim had his back to the goal with defenders all over him and he shot the ball under-hand, no-look and netted his first of the day. Yates added two more goals by the end of the first quarter and Curry was up 5-2. The scoring didn’t slow down in the second quarter. Curry struck with 9:12 left in the quarter, when sophomore Tom Cashin got his first goal of the day. 

In all of this offense for the Colonels, Norwich couldn’t get much going, playing sloppily on the offensive end throwing errant passes, dropping passes and missing ground balls. Curry took advantage of these miscues, adding four more goals by junior Dominick Marcella, sophomore Matt Serra, Flaim, and senior Joseph Shea. 

Curry outshot the Cadets 20-6 peppering Norwich’s freshman goalie with shots. Curry’s three sophomore defensemen kept Norwich’s offense from getting shots on net. “They had a lot of experience last year playing as freshman and they have done a very good job so far this year.” said coach Tim Murphy when asked about the performance of his young defense.

Curry also dominated the face-off circle winning 14 of the 17 face-offs. Curry went into halftime leading 10-4 with all the momentum.

The Colonels must have gotten cold at halftime, like many of the fans in attendance, because they came out looking sluggish. After the intermission, Curry couldn’t maintain offensive momentum, and Norwich came out firing, led by senior Ryan McCarthy who added three goals in the second half. 

With Curry up only 10-7 with eight minutes left, the Colonels got a tripping penalty, putting them a man down for a minute. 35 seconds into the penalty McCarthy scored – narrowing the margin to 10-8 – and the Cadets had every ounce of momentum. The urgency to score for Curry was visible as they worked the ball around on offense waiting for the one good look.

That look came with 3:42 left in the game when Marcella got his third goal of the day. But Norwich didn’t let up. With under a minute left in the game Norwich got possession and started to run their offense, looking to cut the deficit to two. The opportunity came with 37 seconds left when sophomore Nick Imbriani scored to make it 11-9.

After gaining possession, Norwich called timeout. After the timeout Norwich executed and scored with seven seconds left, finally within one score. But the ensuing faceoff was won by sophomore Steve Grogan sealing Curry’s fourth win of the year.

• A family event: Curry’s Joseph Shea got bragging rights after beating his brother, Matt Shea, of Norwich. They both wore number 44.
• Offensively Challenged: Before Fridays game, Norwich came in averaging 4.3 goals per game in their first three games.
• Boring day at the office: Curry’s goalie Shane O’Brien only needed to make 8 saves in the win.