Click here for slideshow
New Canaan boys’ lacrosse goalie Fergus Campbell is no stranger to the spotlight, but the deck seemed stacked against the senior captain when his Rams traveled to Glastonbury Saturday and took on a very good Tomahawks team.

For one, the Rams have had to contend with numerous injuries recently, including two members of the starting defense: George Powell and Bryan Whiting.

On top of that, Campbell injured his thumb last week and wasn’t playing at full speed. Then again, Campbell at 80 percent is probably twice as good as anyone else in between the pipes.

Campbell collected 13 saves, including two at point-blank range which drew some gasps from the Glastonbury crowd late in the game, as New Canaan scored an 8-6 win over the Tomahawks.

Campbell modestly called the late saves “lucky.”

“I saw the score before that and I think we were up by one or two, so I knew I had to come up big,” Campbell said. “I saw him on the crease and I got lucky — he hit me.”

For the Rams, the victory was their 11th of the season against just four losses and will help push them up in the CIAC Class M rankings. Glastonbury suffered its second straight defeat, but still boasted an 11-3 record.

The Tomahawks were also a difficult bunch to shake as they never trailed by more than three goals and had closed the gap to one at 7-6 with 5:10 remaining in the game.

New Canaan senior Max Shaw scored low inside the right post with 3:15 to play, and Campbell came up big on shots by Ryan McCarthy and Eric Small with 2:30 to play. New Canaan gained possession on the second of those stops and the offense ran out the clock for the win.

“We never pulled away from this team and they kept it really tight,” Head Coach Alex Whitten said. “We have some injuries on defense with George Powell and Bryan Whiting, and Fergus has a dinged-up thumb and isn’t playing at 100 percent, so we came out of this game with a big W.”

“We didn’t know much about them, didn’t watch any film for them, but we stuck to our own game, basically,” Shaw said. “All season, we try not to overdo it watching too much about what other teams are doing, and focus on what we’re doing. But we expected them to be good and they gave us a good game today.”

The game also featured fine performances by some different sources, as the offense was without senior co-captain Teddy Citrin and freshman Joe Costigan due to injuries.

Mark Simone, a junior, and Henry Eschricht, a freshman, started on offense and combined for three goals — two for Simone and one for Eschricht.

“We’ve got some injuries right now and we started two guys on attack who had not started there before in Henry Eschricht as a freshman and Mark Simone. Both those guys did well and we got done what we needed to get done,” Whitten said.

The first half was low-scoring, although New Canaan managed to generate a number on opportunities. Glastonbury scored first midway through the first period, but the Rams scored three unanswered goals the rest of the half to take a 3-1 lead into the break.

“We just had to execute,” Shaw said. “We had a bunch of fastbreaks and open-field shots, but we weren’t putting the ball in the net. Their offense was a little bit different from what we’ve seen before, but in the second half we caught on to it and stepped up on both sides of the field.”

The defense, with Richie McGinniss, Kevin Campbell, Henry Richardson and Chris Guynn stepping up, did a number on the Tomahawks, who were shutout for more than 24 minutes.

“Defensively, we did all right,” Whitten said. “They moved well off-ball and they’ve got some kids who have started for two or three years, so they know how to play and they know how to play well. But defensively, we did well. It’s all about communicating, playing well as a unit and trusting one another. We’re continuing to get better at that.”

Simone opened the second-half scoring at 1:39 after Charlie Stanton came around the left pipe but missed on a low shot. Simone scooped the ground ball on the right, rolled left and side-armed a shot past goalie Andrew DeVito (8 saves).

Glastonbury broke its long scoring drought at 5:20 when McCarthy finished off a long possession with a goal to make it 4-2.

That began a seesaw battle, as the Tomahawks answered each Ram goal.

Shaw scored under-handed from about 10 yards out at 6:38, but McCarthy matched that a minute later for a 5-3 tally.

Twenty-eight seconds into the fourth quarter, Simone netted his second goal after senior co-captain Chip Murray won a faceoff and got it to Simone on the right for the score.

Again, Glastonbury came back as Erich Pfeffer scored off a feed from McCarthy to make it 6-4 at 1:37.

With 8:47 remaining, Shaw fed Chip Stine and Stine fired a high shot past DeVito, off the cross bar and into the goal for a 7-4 lead.

This time, the Tomahawks responded with two goals, first from Mike Finn and then from Pfeffer to cut the deficit to one at 7-6 with 5:10 to play.

“We had a little lapse on defense, we got confused and lost our men for a little bit and they scored two quick ones,” Campbell said. “But we got our composure back together and then we were fine.”

McCarthy had a good shot at the equalizer 40 seconds later, but his low shot from the right, was stopped by Campbell, beginning a series of exceptional plays by the goalie down the home stretch.

“He stops the ball well, he’s a good leader on the field and he’s a good communicator,” Whitten said. “One of the things he does really well is he gets the ball up and out as much as possible and he’s a threat in that regard.”

Luke House gave New Canaan some breathing room when he scored for an 8-6 lead with 3:15 remaining and the Rams held on to win by two.

Perhaps as important as the win was the fact that the Rams were able to gain some experience for their younger players, who could play starring roles in the future.

“As we look forward to developing this program, getting younger guys experience is really important,” Whitten said. “It’s important for their physical and mental development and their maturity. We’ve worked on getting a lot of the sophomores in there, getting a guy like Henry Eschricht in there today was important.”

The Rams were set for another showdown last night as they played the Ridgefield Tigers at Tiger Hollow in a game with great bearing on the FCIAC tournament picture.

The Tigers entered the game 12-2 overall and 9-1 in the FCIAC and are in a four-way battle for seedings with Darien (13-1 overall, 10-0 FCIAC) and Greenwich (13-1 overall, 8-1 FCIAC) in the top half of the bracket.

And outside of the numbers, New Canaan and Ridgefield have developed a heated rivalry in recent years.

“I’m really excited to go down there and play them,” Campbell said. “They’ve got a cool stadium, it’ll be a good atmosphere and hopefully, we can come out with a win.”

© Copyright 2008 by Hersam Acorn Newspapers