RallyNorth.net

St. John's Prep boys lacrosse teaches Beverly a valuable lesson

Monday, April, 21 By Matt Jenkins
Staff writer

BEVERLY -- Someday, new Beverly High boys lacrosse coach John Pynchon may be able to recount every single thing that happens on the field. But for now, he's settling on watching just bits and pieces of the play on game day.

The reality is that Pynchon misses some of the on-field action from time to time.

Pynchon paces the sideline perpetually and is very animated in his coaching actions. He's not the type of statuesque coach who appears frozen with his arms folded, but his frequency of turning away from the play is not due to a lack of attention; quite the opposite.

Beverly has hardly any experience returning this spring, and Pynchon spends a lot of his time turning his back on the play to provide individual coaching to players who have just come to the sidelines.

"I always want to coach them as much as I can, and it turns out that you actually miss a lot of what happens on the field when you're turning constantly to coach these guys," Pynchon said. "This is how they get better, especially the younger guys. I coach them right away instead of talking to them an hour later."

Yesterday at Hurd Stadium, Pynchon may have had his back turned to the play more often than not. After the first quarter, that may not have been such a bad thing.

All Pynchon missed was complete dominance by the visiting team. A promising St. John's Prep team put a rare 16-3 beating on the host Panthers.

To be fair, the Eagles are one of the top teams in Eastern Massachusetts. Beverly, on the other hand, is clearly in rebuilding mode; there's a new coaching staff and a roster full of virtual unknowns.

A strong first quarter allowed the Panthers to erase an early 3-0 deficit, and they trailed just 4-3 at the first break. But visiting St. John's ran off 12 unanswered goals in the second and third quarters to put the game away. In total, St. John's scored 13 consecutive tallies to turn a 3-3 tie into a wipeout.

St. John's coach John Roy, who happened to coach Pynchon when the latter played at the Prep, couldn't remember his team ever beating Beverly by such a lopsided score. Still, he sees a bright future for Pynchon at the Beverly helm.

"Most coaches know that as great as we think we are, it's all (about) players," Roy said. "The longer you're in it, you realize that it's the players and you do what you can with the guys that you have. It might be that it's part of his rotation that he's rebuilding. He's got some young guys in there, but you know he knows the game. It was 16-3 and he's still coaching from the sideline, working hard at it."

Two goals from Garrett Campbell and one from Tucker Garfield gave St. John's a quick 3-0 lead, but John Kleemola, John Crowley and Kyle Irving answered to tie the game for Beverly with 2:23 to play in the first quarter.

That three-goal spurt either sucked all the energy out of Beverly ... or woke up a sleeping giant.

"We came out and competed for a quarter," Pynchon said. "After that, we stopped executing. Lots of mental breakdowns on defense."

John Jennings scored five goals and had one assist for St. John's, which is off to a 6-1 start. Campbell added four goals and two assists, Garfield had three goals and two assists, and Mark Scalise contributed two goals and four assists for a very strong Prep offense. John Siderwicz and Taylor Kenny also had goals for the Eagles.