Lincoln-Sudbury Headed Back to BU After Edging Acton-Boxboro

By Michael Abelson (@ABELS0N)

ALLSTON - It was hard. It was tough. And, in the end, it was another sectional title for Lincoln-Sudbury.

The Warriors rebounded from surrendering two early goals to defeat Dual County League rival Acton-Boxboro, 9-7, at Harvard Stadium to claim the Division 1 North championship.

“We kind of talked about it this week: DCL is DCL,” Lincoln-Sudbury senior Jack Sutherland said. “When you’re playing a league game, everyone hates each other and is coming at each other full speed. We stuck with it, kept our heads level, and that helped us prevail.”

Sutherland led the charge for the LS attack once the Acton storm passed. The Warriors answered the Colonials with six of the final seven goals of the first quarter to end the period up 6-3. Sutherland had three of his game-high four goals in the first.

With the game tied at three late in the first, LS scored three goals in 1:47 to finish the period. LS would not fall behind again. Acton did fight back to tie it at six early in the third quarter, but two goals in the third put Lincoln ahead for good.

Hayden Frey added a goal and two assists for LS, while Brett Williams had a pair of goals and a helper. Trevor van Leer had six saves in cage.

Junior Almeida was dominant at the face-off X to give the Warriors their massive leg up in possession.

“We felt good in warmups,” Sutherland said. “We could have done things better, but we stuck to it. We passed and cut a little bit, which is something we’ve been working on when things don’t go our way. We stayed level headed the whole time. That was the key.”

After getting blasted 13-4 in the regular season meeting, the Colonials gave it as good as they got it from the opening face-off. Sam Witt had two goals in the first quarter to pace AB early.

Despite getting beat 15-4 on face-offs, and 20-12 in ground balls, the Colonials stayed in it thanks to a marvelous 13-save performance from senior goalie Tim Fenniman. Dan Armstrong had a hat trick for the Colonials and Tim Kuta had a pair.

“We came out fired up,” Acton-Boxboro coach Pat Ammendolia said. “We’ve seen them before. We knew we had to play at our best, and I think we did for periods of that game. Whatever miniscule mistakes we did make, they capitalized on all of them.”

Despite only outscoring AB 3-2 in the second half, the Warriors showed why they are the two-time reigning Division 1 champions in the final 24 minutes. Lincoln-Sudbury dominated possession in the second half and held the Colonials to just four shots on goal.

After Tim Kuta scored 51 seconds into the third quarter, the LS defense held Acton scorless for the next 21:07 of game time.

“The kids work hard,” Lincoln-Sudbury coach Brian Vona said. “That is the recipe. We have a fantastic community in Sudbury, and we have fantastically hard-working kids. Our goal is to outwork everybody and we’ll see what happens from there.”