I had not posted anything on the past Friday’s game—which was a 16-0 shutout of Kingswood who was supposed to be a decent team this year due to it being an evening game under what passed for “lights”. I quit taking pictures at the half as it just wasn’t worth it. I can crank the ISO and get shots that look fair on a .25” by .25” square but its not worth my time to even look through those let alone edit them…so into the trash they go.
Monday’s 15-2 win over Alvirne is a different story. At least there are some good shots from that game, as relatively uncompetitive as it was. Likely the most physical game of the year so far there were some decent hits given in both direction and a number of fouls as well. Windham kept up its heavy scoring attack and were kept to 15 goals by some great play by the Alvirne goalie who was their best player on the day. Despite the score, Windham got frustrated at times with the saves he was making to the point of trying trick shots and a number of skip shots to try and get past the keeper. Prior games saw Windham scoring on what appeared to be about 2/3 of their shots where here they got more shots off but only were scoring on about 40% if I had to guess.
Windham’s defense also had to play on its heals a bit more than in prior games with a number of “man down” situations. This was what was most notable as Windham’s D in these situations stood strong and kept the Alvirne shooters to the outside and frustrated their ability to get clean looks in a dangerous position. This bodes well for the remainder of the season if they can keep it up. Too often do High School lacrosse players allow shooters to get their arms and hands free vs. staying in the chest and hips of their opponents and here we saw great improvement in this area. Windham goalie Jack Milano was once again more than up to the task of saving the bulk of shots sent his way and remains an anchor in making smart and crisp passes out of the crease.
Wednesday brings what should (though I thought this of the Alvirne game too…) be the first big test of Windham’s season. Losing out in the first round of the ‘21 playoffs to Hollis-Brookline in a bitter 18-9 defeat, Windham will be out for a bit of redemption but as we saw last year where Windham came into the playoffs with a higher seed…nothing can be taken for granted.
