Worth the wait
No. 3 Burrillville plays well in home defeat
Rained out Friday and Saturday, the Burrillville High football team rolled to a 55-14 Division II playoff win Sunday.
BURRILLVILLE — As has been the case throughout the last two seasons, Lincoln senior goalie Tim Cullen played the first half of Sunday’s Division II quarterfinal clash with No. 3 Burrillville before giving way to classmate David Leonardi for the second half.
The difference between Sunday and the last two seasons is Cullen’s services were needed later in the game because the No. 6 Lions and Broncos went to penalty kicks, where both goalies split the job.
After the first five players from both sides scored to send the contest to a tense sudden-death round, Lincoln
junior Chris Accardi slotted his shot past Burrillville reserve goalie Brad Linfield. After giving up goals on his first two attempts, guessed right and blocked junior Sam DeRotto’s attempt to lift the Lions to a 1-1 (6-5) penalty-kick victory over the crestfallen Broncos.
“When [coach John D’Aloisio] suggested we go back and forth in practice I thought it was kind of crazy because I’ve never seen it done before,” Cullen said after making four saves in his half of action. “It seemed like a crazy idea, but we did it in practice and it worked well today. On the last one, I saw him take a tiny glance to [Cullen’s left] and then he tried to
stare me down.”
“We practice penalty kicks all the time in practice and that corner is my spot,” Accardi said. “I can’t second guess myself. I made the decision at the beginning and went with it. We knew that this was going to be a close game and that it could go into penalties, so we practiced a lot of them. Everyone has their own penalties and they just went with them.”
Lincoln (11-5-2 Division II) is in the semifinals for the first time since the 2013 squad advanced all the way to the Division II title game. The Lions will make the short trip to Cumberland’s Tucker Field to take on No. 2 Wheeler at 7:30 p.m. The Warriors earned a 1-0 victory over the Lions in their lone meeting on Oct. 3 at Wheeler Farm.
Burrillville (10-5-2 Divi-
sion II) received a 41st-minute goal from junior midfielder Eric Broderick, but the Lions answered a minute later to send the game into overtime. The Broncos thought they’d scored the game-winning goal in overtime when Cam Toti headed in a rebound off the crossbar, but the senior was ruled offside by the linesman.
In penalty kicks, Burrillville’s Toti, Paul Mello, Cam Harrigan, Zach Bonnell and Nick Gosselin all scored. Just like Lincoln, coach Mark Gilchrist used a pair of goals, but neither starter Brady Tupper nor Linfield could make a stop.
“It’s heartbreaking. It’s difficult to lose on PKs, you don’t know what to say to the kids,” Glichrist said. “The kids played hard and they had a great season after coming up
from Division III, but it’s just heartbreaking when you lose this way.”
As well as the Lions played in the second half and in the shootout, they were lucky to go into halftime scoreless after failing to match Burrillville’s physicality and intensity in the opening 25 minutes. Just three minutes into the game senior Nick Hammond headed a cross just over Cullen’s crossbar. The pressure continued thanks to the play of Toti, Gosselin and Harrigan, but the Lions escaped the half scoreless.
“The game could’ve been over in the first 25 minutes,” D’Aloisio said. “We caught a few breaks because they came out way more aggressive than we did. We almost paid for it. I wasn’t surprised with the way they started, but I was surprised with how flat
we were. They won that first 10 to 15 minutes, it could’ve been ugly.”
Burrillville connected a number of passes to start the second half and scored a goal. It all started with senior defender Zach Giseke’s crossfield ball into the penalty box that DeRotto controlled and cross to the far post. Broderick was on hand to tap the ball into the net.
The Lions weren’t behind for very long because Tupper came off his line to clear a through ball, but the ball bounced right to Matt Carvalho, who lobbed the ball into the vacated net.
Lincoln continued to press and nearly won the game when junior winger Josh Jahnz beat two defenders on the left side only to scoop his close-range shot over Tupper in the 77th minute.
After a pair of scoreless overtime periods, the Lions and Broncos exchanged superb penalty kicks. Lincoln’s David Idarraga, Chris Albanese, David Chatty, Charles Bucacci and freshman Thomas Corcoran all scored. Burrillville answered each kick until Accardi’s effort was followed by Cullen’s diving save.
“How can you not be proud of this group?” D’Aloisio said. “They came up here and beat a solid Burrillville team on their home field in a game that could’ve gone either way. I’m really proud of them. We caught a break that we would’ve got in years past, so it kind of seems like it’s our year when things like that happen.”