Goaltender Anthony Kulturides always gives the Cohasset High boys lacrosse team a chance
COHASSET – Checklist for being a good lacrosse goaltender:
Make saves
Help clear the ball out of the defensive zones
Score goals
Wait, what?
No. 3 on that list is rarely seen, but it’s exactly how Anthony Kulturides, the goalie for the Cohasset High boys lacrosse team, started his stellar day on Saturday.
After making a save following the opening faceoff in Saturday’s Division 4 Round of 16 meeting against Hamilton-Wenham, Kulturides jogged down the middle of the field looking to pass to a teammate. But when the Generals allowed him to get past midfield, Kulturides turned on the jets and fired a shot top shelf to put the Skippers up 1-0.
More: H.S. TOURNAMENT ROUNDUP: Find all the South Shore scores and highlights from Saturday here
Although that marked the end of Kulturides’ scoring on the day, that was far from his only contribution. The senior captain, who will patrol the pipes at Merrimack College next spring, finished the 12-5 win with 12 saves and was virtually flawless clearing the ball. (Thomas Hansen did bail out Kulturides on a pass that sailed high with a full-extension grab at midfield.)
“Add it to the bag of tricks,” said Cohasset coach Steve Rotondi of his goalie. “A lot of things that we scheme and scout, we want to leave the goalie with the ball on the clear. You hear the opposite when we have opponents come in here or we go on the road. As soon he goes shot-save, you hear every opposing coach yelling ‘cover the goalie,' ‘slide to him early’ or send extra guys. Even with that, he’s so fast that he’s still even tough to catch when he decides he’s going.”
“I don’t think these guys ever expected to see a goalie as talented he is, honestly,” said Hamilton-Wenham coach Rich Cooke. “That was something else.”
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The No. 2 Skippers will host No. 7 Medway in the Division 4 Elite Eight at a date and time to be determined.
Had it not been for Kulturides' standout performance in net, the Skippers might have been more uneasy against an upset-minded H-W team. The Generals tied the game at 2-2 early before the Skippers rattled off three consecutive goals in the second quarter (two from sophomore Charlie Donovan, one from Robbie Norton).
Still the Generals were hanging around in the third quarter. Despite earning four minutes of penalty time in the quarter, Cohasset only surrendered one goal and increased a 5-3 halftime lead to 8-4 after three quarters. In the fourth quarter, the Skippers added four insurance tallies before H-W’s Charlie Schibli notched a goal late.
In the third quarter, the Skippers earned two penalties at the same time (both locked in, one for a minute and the other for two). Right out of the reset, Josh Burke forced a turnover and the Skippers played keep away for two minutes to kill off the H-W man-advantage.
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"Not only do we hold the ball to keep possession, we had a couple looks at the cage, so we almost scored with a man down,” said Rotondi.
Burke also forced a turnover at the start of another General man-advantage in the third quarter. He drew a penalty for unnecessary roughness when he was leveled with an open-field hit. He quickly returned after walking off the field.
“I think any coach would say the same about him. I mean he’s the motor,” Rotondi said of Burke, who also plays football and basketball. “He’s as competitive as it gets. When you get a guy out there who is a senior and has played in big games, who understands it, he just explodes. That’s exactly what we want to see.”
Sophomore Liam Appleton powered Cohasset’s offense in the second half. After posting one assist in the first half (on a John Shannon goal), he scored three goals and had an assist after halftime
“Liam’s been great,” said Rotondi. “He’s a big, strong kid who knows how to score goals. I think at first we were kind of just feeling out the game and where to go. Once he got comfortable and started getting into the flow of wanting to shoot the ball, he just started to put them in the back of the net.”
Jack Hartwell, Aidan Westphalen and Luke Wilmot had solo tallies for the Skippers in the win.
Expedited rebuild
The Generals finish the season with a deceptive record of 6-14. H-W graduated several key players from last season and played a non-league schedule filled with Division 1 opponents.
“Losing those was a pretty big hit, so this was very much a rebuild,” said Cooke. "To get to where we are now with what we were expecting to be a down year, we’re very happy with what we’re seeing.”
Ben Woods played well in net in the loss. Senior Zachary Walles scored two goals.
A new rivalry?
Before this school year, meetings between Cohasset and Hamilton-Wenham were few and far between. With the new statewide tournament, the schools have started to form an unexpected rivalry.
In the fall, H-W defeated the Cohasset girls soccer team in overtime in the Division 4 state final. En route to a Division 7 state football title, the Skippers upset the Generals in the quarterfinals. The Cohasset/Hull boys hockey team defeated H-W in the Division 4 Round of 32 in the winter.
“It’s a school that we’ve matched up with across various sports every single season,” said Rotondi. “We kind of have this new natural rivalry growing there."
This article originally appeared on The Patriot Ledger: Cohasset boys lacrosse advances to Div. 4 Elite Eight
