Cortland Standard .net

By TOM VARTANIAN
Staff Writer
It was a night to celebrate for Homer Central lacrosse.
Trojan senior captain and attackman Anthony Basile scored five goals and handed out three assists as theTrojans rolled to a 12-6 OHSL Freedom National Division win Tuesday at George Butts Field over Marcellus on Senior Recognition Night.
Basile and his 12 classmates were honored with their parents after the first-place Trojans improved to 7-1 in division play and 8-5 overall. The second-place Mustangs fell to 4-2, 5-5 overall.
“It was a great win tonight,” said Basile after the memorable evening concluded. “We knew Marcellus was a good team because we had a close game the first time. This win will give us a lot of steam heading into our next game.”
“It was big to win tonight because you always want to protect your home field,” senior captain and three-year defenseman Drew Cottrell added. “That’s been important to us to play well at home and try to win every home game. We are still working on winning enough games to get a home playoff game.”
Homer head coach Tom Cottrell was pleased with his team’s effort and his senior class.
“We certainly like playing at home and the guys showed that tonight,” Coach Cottrell said. “We’ve lost two close games at home this year, but we have played some very good lacrosse at home this year. The only way to get one more game here will be to win some more games and get a little luck at the seeding meeting.
“The kids came out for Senior Night a little sluggish in the first period,” he continued. “We looked a little bit tired, but we got our legs under us and I thought we played extremely well in the middle two quarters. The guys responded well to Marcellus scoring the first goal of the game.”
THE MUSTANGS TOOK that 1-0 lead with 8:33 left in the first quarter when Mike McNaney scored the first of his two goals on the night, but Homer responded with 11 unanswered goals to take control.
Basile found the mark for the first time off an assist from classmate Dean Riley with 1:08 left in the evenly-played first quarter.
It was the same combination one minute into the second quarter that put the Trojans in front for good. Jerrad Reiner made it 3-1 with a low corner rocket three minutes into the quarter. Senior Brad Sovocool finished a beautiful three-pass sequence with 7:57 left in the half. Reiner started the scoring push by splitting a double team near midfield. He got a quick pass off to Riley (three goals-two assists) who found Basile who fed Sovocool for the finisher.
Riley scored the fourth goal of the quarter with Basile assisting and senior Matt Suits got the final goal of the half off a nice spin move with 1:10 left until the break.
Basile scored his final three goal in the first five minutes of the third quarter. Riley got the first assist and he set-up the next goal with a nice quick pass to Sovocool who got the ball to Basile for the 9-1 cushion. Sovocool again threaded the needle to Basile for a quick-stick one-timer with 7:21 to go in the quarter. Riley finished off the 11-0 run with some hustle after scooping a loose ball and firing it into the cage with 6:11 left in the quarter.
Marcellus got goals from Matt Hutchings (three goals) and Harrison Cox to close out the third quarter.
McNaney gave the Mustangs their third straight goal to start the fourth quarter scoring, but Riley scored a man-up goal 28 second later for the 12-4 advantage. Hutchings collected the final two goals of the match including a man-up tally with 2:29 remaining.
BOTH GOALIES PLAYED played exceptionally well. Dan Cusick recorded 15 saves for the Mustangs while Mark Suits made 11 saves for the Trojans. Hutchings’ final goal caught Suits and stunned the junior which opened the door for senior Zack Sovocool to final the 2:29 of the game. He was not tested as the Trojans held the ball in the offensive zone to run out the clock.
“Mark played a great game,” Coach Cottrell said. “He saw the ball very well and made some great saves.”
Another reason for the solid win was senior Chris Birchenough, who won 17 of 22 face-offs for the Trojans to give his team possession of the ball.
“Chris has gotten better and better with each game after his late start to the season,” Coach Cottrell stated. “Tonight was important for us with it being Senior Night. He really stepped up as a senior. More importantly he was not just winning the face-offs, but making good decisions with the ball afterwards. He handled the pressure from their long-stick middies and got the ball to our offensive guys.”
All three Homer captains gave some thoughts on their final home game along with three-year senior defenseman Paddy McSherry.
“It’s like POW!” Basile said. “It comes at you really fast. We have been handling it well. We are having great practices and they’ve been really intense. It’s really everything I expect from this group.”
“”This is one of the first group to stick together all through our childhood,” Danny Turck added. “We’ve been together since youth lacrosse, modified, JV and now varsity. It’s bittersweet to see it all end, but that’s why we plan to keep going in the playoffs for a while. Hopefully we can get one more game in front of the home fans.”
“”Paddy and I have played together so long that we know what we each are going to do,” Cottrell said. “We have had a very good defensive group.
“It’s tough to think about a last home game,” he continued. “We’ve been around the game and Homer for so long. It just doesn’t feel like it’s come to an end yet. That’s why we want to keep winning games so it doesn’t end.”
“DREW AND I HAVE been together on varsity since we were sophomores,” McSherry said. Scott (Walter) joined us when we were all juniors. We all want to finish out our careers strong and get as far as we can in the post-season.
“I really having felt the impact of that being the final home game,” he continued. “We still here right now. I suppose I will look back at this some time in the future and maybe regret not living in the moment.”
“I wish we could have had a bigger crowd to watch this 13 seniors played their last home game,” Coach Cottrell said. “Eight of them will be playing lacrosse in college and a couple will be playing football. That’s 10 guys going on to the next level in their athletic careers. It is a solid group from top to bottom.”
Homer will return to OHSL Freedom Division action Thursday traveling to Cortland High for a 7 p.m. contest. JV action will begin at 5 p.m.
HOMER JVS had their contest with Marcellus postponed. No make-up date has been announced.
The Homer Lacrosse Booster Club handed out an award to Brent Riley after the game for all contributions to lacrosse from the youth level on up over the years.