Cannons miss big chance
Late rally falls short
Despite trailing for almost the entire game, there was always a belief on the Cannons’ sideline that they would come back, and when Zed Williams found himself free for a point-blank, gametying shot with less than a minute to go, it looked like it would happen.
BLAZE CANNONS 14 13
But yesterday just wasn’t the Cannons’ night.
The Cannons trailed by five goals going into the fourth quarter and staged a late rally to get within one, but Williams’ shot with 35 seconds left hit off the side of the net. The Cannons didn’t get another opportunity to tie it as they lost 14-13 to the Atlanta Blaze in front of 3,726 at Veterans Memorial Stadium in Quincy.
With the loss, the Cannons (6-4) fell out of first place in Major League Lacrosse. It was their second defeat in three meetings this season with the Blaze (6-5).
“You could just feel the energy with our guys and the fans again were awesome for us,” Cannons coach Sean Quirk said of the comeback effort. “We felt that momentum building and when we got within one, we had some opportunities down there. I felt like we could have scored two goals.”
Williams ignited the Cannons’ rally with a pair of goals to start the fourth, the second of which was a twopoint shot that made it 13-11. Kyle Jackson followed with a goal on a rebound to make it a one-goal game, and after the Blaze got one back, Challen Rogers’ wraparound goal made it 14-13 with 6:26 to go.
That’s where the score stayed as the Cannons couldn’t capitalize on any of their chances down the stretch — which included multiple possessions ending with turnovers.
“With our team, we always feel like we’re in it, especially with the two-point line,” said Cannons attack Mark Cockerton, who was held in check with just one goal. “At the end there, we had a couple of turnovers. Tough loss, but we have one more to go with them so we’ll get them next time.”
Poor first-half play ultimately doomed the Cannons. Cockerton scored the game’s opening goal, but the Blaze responded with six unanswered goals. The Cannons came back with three consecutive goals — including James Burr’s first two career tallies — but they couldn’t sustain the momentum.
A scoreless second quarter put the Cannons in a big hole as the Blaze scored three times to take a 9-4 halftime lead. Quirk said his team was rushing too much offensively, and Cockerton even said the Cannons were playing a little bit selfishly. It didn’t help that Blaze goalie Christopher Madalon was a wall in net. He made 10 firsthalf saves, including an impressive sequence on one play in the second quarter in which he stopped three point-blank shots consecutively.
“We were just sloppy at different parts of the game and I think that really hurt us today,” Cockerton said. “I think half the game we played great, and the other half we didn’t play Boston Cannons lacrosse, and they scored a bunch on us. … I think we had glimpses where we looked great and played our style of ball and sometimes we didn’t and it cost us.”
Quirk expects his players to regroup for a tough road test next week against the Chesapeake Bayhawks, who entered Saturday in a tie for first.
“We have to look at the things that we did well and continue to build on those and look at the things that we need to work that we haven’t done well the last few weeks,” Quirk said. “We play Chesapeake next week for the first time this season and our guys will be ready. Every week we go to battle, our guys are bringing it. It’s a super tight-knit group, so I know that they’ll be ready to go next week against Chesapeake.”