Milford Lacrosse’s Offensive Coming Together

Thursday, April 19, 2012

Joe Parello, GoLocalWorcester Contributor

Senior Jake Scordato has played all over the field for the Hawks this year.

Milford is a baseball town, but the talented Milford High School lacrosse team will be hard to ignore for long.

“Milford is a little baseball crazy,” coach David Dague said with a chuckle. “We’re a new program, and we’re trying to get out of the shadow of baseball a little bit.”

Part of getting out of baseball’s shadow has come with facilities- the Hawks debuted a brand new turf field with lights this season- but most of it will come through on-field success. Milford is having its share of that as well, and has come a long way in since its inception as a varsity team in 2009.

After back-to-back three win seasons in 2009 and 2010, the Hawks enjoyed their first winning season last year, going 11-8. They currently sit at 3-2 and have one goal on their minds.

“Hanging a banner,” senior defensemen Jake Scordato said. “We want to make the playoffs, and we get there by winning a title.”

Offense Starting to Gel

The Hawks started their season struggling to score goals against tough competition. Despite solid offensive efforts, they scored just four goals in losses to Littleton and Tyngs borough. Before the season, coach Dague moved several of his offensive players to defense and the midfield and, after the initial struggles, he moved some of them back, including junior Kyle Kirby.

“We had him as a longstick midfielder,” Dague said. “We moved him back to shortstick, and I think the longstick is a little overrated, because he’s a great defender either way. But it was also a mentality change (for the team). We have to shoot to score, and we were trying to juke a hundred times and weren’t shooting. Now we’re shooting a lot more from the top.”

Milford has scored 19 goals in it past two games, both wins, and leading scorer Eric Overdahl believes it is just a matter of the team getting comfortable with new personnel.

“We weren’t really confident early on,” Overdahl said. “We have three freshmen starting, and it just took a little bit of time. They’ve all really stepped it up, and the older guys have confidence in their games now.”

Defense Keeping Things Close

While the offense has come around, Milford’s defense has been consistently solid this season. The Hawks are giving up under six goals a game, and junior goalkeeper Matt McIntire has been a huge reason why.

“(McIntire) is just playing great,” coach Dague said. “He’s made so many big saves for us, and he does a great job of leading our break. I think it’s the most important position on the field, and he has kept us in games.”

Around McIntire, the defense is largely rebuilt. Only junior Joe DeAngelis returns as a starter from last season, but junior Jon Dague-coach David’s son- believes the new-look defense has a great deal of promise. Having moved players like Scordato and junior Mike Tittelbaum back to defend, the unit certainly has a great deal of speed.

“We’ve moved a bunch of guys from the midfield and attack back there, and they’re really quick and tough to get by,” the younger Dague said. “They sort of bring an attacker’s state of mind to the position. They know what an attacker is thinking, and where he wants to go with the ball.”

A Huge Win

Milford is coming off, perhaps the biggest win in program history, after defeating Tantasqua 9-8 Saturday. The Hawks trailed 8-3 midway through the second half, but managed to fight their way back to tie it at eight with under a minute to play.

With a little over 10 seconds remaining, Scordato picked up a loose ball, and hurled it 70 yards down field. In a play reminiscent of Duke’s 1992 Elite Eight pass from Grant Hill to Christian Laettner, Overdahls snatched the ball out of the air with one hand, spun away from a defender and found the back of the net for the winning goal.

“It was one of the best games I’ve ever been a part of,” coach Dague said. “It was pretty surreal to be honest. I think both teams learned lessons from it, and we learned that we just have to keep playing and never quit. Hopefully we can carry this momentum the rest of the year.