At the Belmont Hill School, the Big Blue took on Arlington Catholic, the top team in the Catholic Central League.
Even though it was a non-conference game, it was important for seeding in the State Tournament. For a while it looked like an upset in the making as Swampscott scored the first four goals.
But Arlington Catholic took over and outscored Swampscott 10-3 down the stretch for a 10-7 win.
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Swampscott dominated early. Mark McMahon came up with a big save at the 10:17 mark and it turned out to be the only shot taken on him during the quarter.
Richie Sullivan broke the ice with a goal at 7:42 for the early lead. Defensemen usually don’t score much in a lacrosse game, but Billy Valle has been doing it more and more.
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He made it 2-0 from Aidan Lang at the 7:17 mark. Arlington Catholic was having problems getting the ball out of their zone. Sean Lannon made it 3-0 from Patrick Kennedy and Brian Santry with 5:51 left in the quarter.
Matt Gambale made it four straight Swampscott goals assisted by Sullivan to end the first quarter with a 4-0 lead.
Arlington Catholic finally broke through with 43 seconds elapsed in the second quarter to make it 4-1. Patrick Kennedy countered with an unassisted goal to keep the lead at four goals.
But the rest of the quarter was dominated by Arlington Catholic. They scored twice during a man advantage to cut the lead to 5-3. They then finished out the quarter with two more goals, the last a killer with only 1.2 seconds left on the clock to even things up at 5.
In the second half, Arlington Catholic scored twice in the first two minutes and assumed control of the game. The quarter finished with the Big Blue trailing 8-5.
Sean Lannon put some life back in the Big Blue by scoring unassisted at the 11:35 mark to make it 8-6.
But Swampscott would allow two more goals before Lannon completed his hatrick with 1:38 to go in the game to make the final score 10-7. With the loss, Swampscott falls to 7-8 overall.
They take on archrival, Marblehead, on Saturday in Marblehead.
