BC High Lax Tops Needham in Season Opener

By Marisa Ingemi (@Marisa_Ingemi)

If Boston College High School was worried about life after A.J. Kucinski, the Eagles can feel confident about their offensive depth after soaring past the Needham Rockets in a 12-10 victory on Tuesday afternoon.

Defender Will Bowen scored once and shut down prolific scorer Jason Child in a season opening victory for the Eagles.

“We knew Jason really goes to the goal,” said BC High head coach Steve Lydon. “They have six good guys on the offensive side. We didn’t key in on one particular guy. It’s early in the season, we don’t know who they’re going to be playing.”

Pat Bulger scored four times for the Eagles while Charlie Pyne and Pat Jennings each had a pair. The Rockets’ Brendan Walsh had their biggest output with four tallies, while Anthony Trabucco scored twice.

The Eagles headed into this season following a title game loss to Lincoln-Sudbury, and looking to replace starting goalie Matt Haggan and two top scorers in Kucinski and Oskar Djusberg. So far, they’ve made the adjustment.

“We graduated A.J. who was our gun. This year, we’re a completely different group,” Lydon said. “We’re more balanced, we have more dangerous players all over the field.”

BC High opened the scoring on a 5-1 run before the Rockets were able to use two scoring bursts in the second half to bring the game within two with 2:42 to go in the game. The Eagles staunch defense was able to hold up, however, using the play of Bowen and junior defender Tommy Joyce to keep the Rockets’ ball out of the net.


“Needham’s a really good team, we had spurts where we played pretty well, they had spurts where they outplayed us,” Lydon said. “It was a game of runs and we were lucky to have that one early, it was enough to hold on.”

Even without their top defender, Sam Eisenstadt, the Rocket defense held BC High off late, with the Eagles scoring just a single goal in the final frame of the contest. Max Sylvia got in the way of plays, and Joe Bruno won some key draws to earn the Rockets late possessions.

The Eagles escaped with the victory, and Needham will have to reset before facing Framingham on Friday, while the Eagles host St. John’s Prep on Thursday.

Lydon hopes his team can take something out of the Needham game after the defense was exposed late before BC High continues a tough early season schedule.

“I thought they did a nice job,” Lydon said. “Needham mixed it up, they played zone and man. We responded well, but we have to continue.”