West Essex's Third-Quarter Surge Torches Caldwell

On the hottest day of the year, the West Essex boys lacrosse team appeared a bit parched.

As usual, Bucknell-bound midfielder Tommy Black found a way to quench the Knights' thirst.

The senior scored twice during the first two minutes of the second half to ignite West Essex's six-goal outburst during the third quarter of a 13-5 home victory over Caldwell High as temperatures exceeded 90 degrees Wednesday at Travis Field.

"We just need that one goal, the one big hit—it just loosens us all up," said Black, who scored all three of his goals and recorded three of his four assists during the third quarter.

"It was pretty hot. It was the first hot day, so we didn't really know how to handle it. It took a little toll on us."

It showed following the first half when West Essex held just a 3-2 lead at intermission.

But Black's back-to-back goals in a span of just over a minute jumpstarted the Knights, who outscored the Chiefs 6-1 during the third quarter to grab a commanding 9-3 advantage heading into the fourth.

"We just had a couple of letdowns, but they're a good team so they capitalized on them. You can't let them have those looks," Caldwell coach John Timan said. "They stepped up and we didn't match. Going out 3-2, we should have been pumped up and looking to take it to them." 

Instead, Black scored on two long shots past Caldwell senior goalie Bryan Lockward to extend the Knights' lead to 5-2 just 1 minute, 56 seconds into the third quarter.

West Essex freshman midfielder Matt Garvey pushed the lead to 6-2 when his pump-fake froze the Chiefs' defense before unleashing a bounced shot that found its way past Lockward with 8:32 remaining in the quarter.

After Caldwell's Dan Gargiulo cut the deficit to 6-3 on a one-timer off a feed from Chris Lawshe with 8:12 left, the Knights scored three more goals in the final six-plus minutes of the quarter.

"We played a little harder in the second half. I don't think we played very hard in the first half," West Essex coach Tim Glenn said. "Caldwell clearly outplayed us in the first half as far as effort. It wasn't even close. They clearly wanted it more than us in the first half."

The Chiefs' effort was backstopped by Lockward, who made 9 of his 16 saves—several of which from close range—during the first two quarters. 

"I thought we were OK in the first half. We just didn't finish. It's been a problem for us all year," Glenn said. "We got a lot of point-blank shots and we just missed. The goalie was good. He was in good position. He's a good athletic goalie, but we just didn't hit the corners."

Lockward, however, was unable to prevent the Knights (4-0) from taking a 2-0 lead less than four minutes into the game on goals by junior midfielder Joe Fusco and junior attackman Ben Minden.

After Caldwell (0-4) cut the deficit in half on a goal by Billy Pierce with 2:37 left in the first quarter, West Essex responded to start the second quarter when junior attackman Patrick Farrell scored off a feed from Black for a 3-1 advantage with 10:23 left until halftime.

Lawshe, who led the Chiefs with two goals and an assist, scored on a one-timer off a feed from Andrew Kratsch with 8:28 remaining in the second quarter to trim the Knights' lead to 3-2 at halftime.

"We did well in the first half," Timan said. "We need to get some more depth. Our depth is what has hurt us. We're a good team, even though we're 0-4 now. Every game we've played this year we've been either tied or winning at halftime, except for this one. 

"We had three freshmen out there. We only have about four seniors playing. It's a young team. As they get more experience, they'll get better."

Following the Knights' third-quarter onslaught, the Chiefs rebounded in the fourth quarter, but were often denied by West Essex junior goalie Mike Wiatrak, who made seven of his 15 saves during the final 12 minutes.

Three of those stops came in one sequence—all from point-blank range—while the Knights were a man down with about six minutes remaining in the game.

"Their goalie had some amazing saves in the fourth quarter," Timan said. "We had looks. We just didn't get it in. That's all you can do—make the goalie make the saves and he did."

After the Knights scored twice during the first three minutes of the fourth quarter on goals by senior attackman Tom Martin and junior midfielder Gordie Miczak to take an 11-3 advantage with 9:10 remaining in the game, Wiatrak stepped up when some of his teammates "took a lot of chances on defense," according to Glenn.

"Wiatrak again played great. He saved us a few times," the West Essex coach said. "It's nice having him back there. I don't think we were very good defensively. We took a lot of chances on defense that we normally don't take. That concerns me. But Wiatrak saved us in a lot of situations."

The Knights' sluggish first-half performance was another concern for Glenn.

"We're not good enough to put out that effort," he said. "We're a pretty good team, but we're not good enough to let other teams outwork us."

West Essex won 13 of 22 faceoffs and were led defensively by the Villanova-bound John LoCascio, who scooped up a game-high seven groundballs. Junior defender Tyler Fossetta picked up five groundballs and Martin had four.

In his second game back from mono, Martin, a senior quad-captain, had two goals and an assist after recording three assists in his first game on Monday.

"He definitely makes a difference," Glenn said. "He's still trying to get himself back in shape. He came out most of the second period, because he is just not in game shape right now.

"He ran and did what he could, but he's just coming off mono and he's just not used to playing games. It's going to take time to get the flow and get used to playing with each other again."