'I don’t think we’ve peaked yet.' New-look STA boys lacrosse riding seven-game win streak

DOVER – After winning just three games last season and losing three of its first five games this year, the St. Thomas Aquinas boys lacrosse team has turned things around recently.

The Saints won their seventh straight game on Thursday with a 17-4 win against Pembroke and are now 9-3 on the season.

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“We’re very happy with where we’re at,” said first-year coach Scott Singer. “I don’t think we necessarily had any expectations.”

The stretch of success included quality victories over Windham and Winnacunnet.

“We knew we needed to be better than last year,” said senior midfielder and co-captain Marcus Broom.

In Thursday's win over Pembroke, Anthony DiMartino and Finn Connor both had four goals, while Jackson Estes had three goals, and Broom had two.

STA held the Eagles to six goals and the Warriors to three. With the win over Winnacunnet, the Saints avenged an early season loss to the Warriors.

“Defensively is where we’ve been the most impressive I think,” Singer said. “We’ve performed extremely well in that area over the past couple weeks.”

The defense is anchored by senior co-captain Max Murray and backboned by sophomore goalie Eli Allaire, who stopped 13 of 16 shots against Winnacunnet.

"He's been phenomenal in net," Singer said.

“He definitely has a knack for it,” Broom said. “The kid’s reflexes are unlike anything I’ve seen.”

The Saints are relatively young with just four seniors on the squad. They also start two freshmen and several sophomores.

“We’re not super deep,” Singer said. “We’re very driven by our junior class.”

Singer was coming off a three-year stint as head coach at Roxbury Latin in Massachusetts when he landed the job at St. Thomas. He replaced Sean Houlahan, who now coaches the men's club lacrosse team at UNH.

“The administration is very committed to building the boys lacrosse program,” Singer said. “That was something that was very attractive to me.”

He also has seven years of coaching experience at the college level with stints as an assistant at Division III Ohio Wesleyan and Colorado College. Singer played collegiately at Division I Hartford.

“Definitely a little bit of a learning curve,” Broom said of the coaching change. “We knew it was going to be a different situation. I made sure everyone entered it with an open mind.”

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To prepare for the season the Saints scheduled scrimmages against Division I Londonderry and Maine Class A powers Cape Elizabeth and Thornton Academy.

“It helps just seeing that next level of high school play,” Broom said.

The first two weeks of the regular season included back-to-back games against 2021 Division I finalist Exeter and defending Division II champion Portsmouth.

“The front end of our schedule was a gauntlet,” said Singer, who is the vice president of 4 Leaf Lacrosse New England. “I think it was helpful seeing those kinds of high quality opponents so that we could learn from the losses.”

Monday’s home game against Coe-Brown was postponed because of the threat of severe weather and re-scheduled for Saturday, May 28, at 10 a.m., and is the Saints’ regular-season finale.

STA has five games left including one at perennial power Derryfield next week.

“We’re in a good position now,” Singer said. “We’re just tried to emphasize the approach of getting a little bit better every day. That’s really been the mentality. To the kids’ credit, they bought into that approach and worked really hard. That’s where we’ve started to see some of that recent success.”

Portsmouth is the last team to defeat St. Thomas.

“I don’t think we’ve peaked yet,” Singer said. “We’ve got a couple more weeks left in the season and I think we’re still getting better”

A little more than a year after having their season canceled by the Ivy League after just one game because of the pandemic, Dover’s Andrew Geppert helped the Brown University men’s lacrosse team return to the Division I NCAA tournament for the first time since 2016.

A starter at close defense, the former St. Thomas Aquinas High School standout finished with 22 ground balls and a team-high 24 caused turnovers for the Bears, who captured the regular season league title by virtue of a tie-breaker and hosted the conference tournament as the No. 1 seed.

Geppert, who graduated from Phillips Exeter Academy after transferring from STA, received honorable mention all-conference accolades from the Ivy League this year. Eighth-seeded Brown’s season ended last Saturday night in the NCAA playoffs with a 17-10 loss at home to two-time defending national champion Virginia.

A senior academically, Geppert has at least one more year of athletic eligibility remaining if he chooses to use it as a concession from the NCAA for time lost by college players because of COVID-19.

This article originally appeared on Portsmouth Herald: Coach Scott Singer has St Thomas Aquinas boys lacrosse on win streak