PERRYVILLE SENIOR NIGHT HONORS 13 SENIORS

By Kevin Phillips

PERRYVILLE–Perryville got a wakeup call in the first quarter when visiting Edgewood scored three times in the first three and a half minutes in the teams’ UCBAC boys’ lacrosse showdown Friday evening,

The Panthers quickly settled down and proceeded to score the next 18 goals to surge past the Rams en route to a 20-5 victory on Senior Night, which saw six different seniors find the back of the net for Perryville.

“I think it was a great way to go out on our last guaranteed home game and have a great win. We started out slow, but we finished great,”

Zack Clarke, who scored six goals, said. “It was an overall team win and got everyone in. Everyone is happy.”

Edgewood got two goals from Tyrone Jones and another from Michael Antai in the game’s first 3:32 to take a 3-0 lead, but head coach Doug Savick did not call timeout just to see how his team would respond.

“I knew we could. Actually, I was looking at that to be a wake up call for the guys because I thought they started a little bit flat with a lot of ceremonial stuff with Senior Night,.” Savick said.

“I wanted to let them respond on their own because they’re going to have to fight through things.”

Less than two minutes later, Clarke got Perryville on the board with a goal, and the Panthers pulled to within one when Vinnie Muscella scored on a one-time pass from Logan Roberts.

After Clarke tied it at three with an unassisted goal with 1:52 remaining in the first quarter, Kurt Vaughn gave Perryville the lead for good at 4-3 less than a minute later, and Muscella said the Rams’ quick start actually gave them a bolt of energy.

“We were shocked, but it gave us a little boost. We had to wake up because we knew that this shouldn’t have happened,” Muscella, who scored five goals, said. “We woke up, and we scored 18 unanswered. We had to wake up. We woke up in time.”

Perryville took control of the game in the second quarter as they scored seven goals in the frame to make it 11-3 going into halftime, and Clarke and Muscella scored three goals each in the quarter with Evan Benyon scoring the other goal in the period.

The Panthers put the game out of reach in the third quarter with seven more goals thanks to three goals from Michael Young, two from Clarke, and one each from Benyon and Muscella.

Muscella said Perryville wanted to try some new things offensively before the playoffs, and the new formation they implemented against Edgewood paid off.

“We have multiple formations. We have a solid one-for-one we run all of the time,” Muscella said. “We were like ‘we have to try some new things coming into the playoffs because it’s going to be a big thing. We decided to try them out tonight. We tried our 2-3, which worked really well.”

“We went to a new formation that we normally don’t run. Everything was just clicking. It was a good flow, and everything worked,”

Clarke added.

Clarke, Muscella, Young, Benyon, Vaughn and Aiden Zimmerman were all seniors who scored for the Panthers on Senior Night, and Muscella said a strong win on their final scheduled win will give them confidence for the remainder of the season.

“It means alot. Being here for four years, Senior Night came fast. To win like that will boost our confidence going into the playoffs. It’s a good feeling inside,” Muscella said.

Jones finished with three goals to lead the Rams.