After spending more than an hour huddled in cars waiting for their MIAA Boys Lacrosse East Division 2 preliminary round game against 22nd-seeded Holliston to start, 11th-seeded Wellesley wasted little time ending it, scoring eight first quarter goals en route to a 16-5 win at Sprague Field.
"We had a great start," said Raider coach Rocky Batty, "Both teams had to be nervous coming out of that delay that one of us might be ahead of the other and I'm glad it was us."
Wellesley (15-6), winners of 10 straight, will take on the winner of Wednesday's preliminary round game between 6th-seeded Foxboro (15-3) and 27th-seeded Nauset (10-7), either traveling to Foxboro or hosting Nauset in a first round game at 4 p.m. on Saturday.
"We got 10 in a row, the problem is we have to keep racking up one in a row and that's a challenge," said Batty. "Whatever we did in the past doesn't matter. We're on a good roll still but to keep this thing from ending we got to get one in a row. Whoever we see next we have to really play well."
Senior Peter Crane scored five goals and had one assists while junior Sam Lawrence added three goals and three assists to lead the Wellesley offense.
"Sam's terrific. He's been a workhorse for us," said Batty. "He's always going to be one of the stronger athletes on the field and it comes down to whether he's going to play lacrosse that day or just be an athlete. He's that guy."
Junior Charlie Jennings and sophomore Alex Walkingshaw each had hat tricks while seniors Oliver Saffery and Ryan Cassidy had single scores. Senior goalie Connor Darcey made a dozen saves while letting just four shots by him.
"I was actually really impressed and proud of our guys," said Lawrence. "That was a rough start but then we came out firing and blew them out right in the first quarter. We had to keep on going but it was over by then, we had an eight-zero start which is huge in a game like this. We're going into the tournament strong and we hope to continue that momentum and hopefully go pretty deep in this tournament."
