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SUDBURY, Mass. -- It was a pitcher’s duel from beginning to end, and ultimately a clutch walk-off single from Lincoln-Sudbury senior Brian Carroll was the difference, giving the Warriors (6-4) a 2-1 win over third-ranked BC High (7-2).

Junior Owen Bautze, in his second start of the year, got the win for Lincoln-Sudbury, scattering three hits in seven innings pitched. BC High’s one run came by way of a home run by leadoff hitter Dan Dougherty (2-for-4) in the third inning.

“BC High--they can always swing the bats. Last year they put a quick eight runs on us. [Owen] pitched phenomenal for seven straight innings," Carroll said in praise of his teammate. "He came out against a very good team and performed well."

Lincoln-Sudbury coach Kirk Fredericks echoed his senior’s remarks on Bautze, pointing out Bautze’s gradual improvement in terms of his mentality on the mound.

“It’s all about getting better," Fredericks said. "Earlier in the year if he gives up a home run it would have affected him for the next couple batters. Here he gives up a home run, he comes right back, and he does a nice job."

Following Dougherty’s home run in the third, the Warriors come back in the fourth with a run of their own. Sid Warrenbrand hit a single up the middle to score Ian Kinney and tie the ballgame at one.

“We really worked on two strike hitting, it showed up today," Carroll said. "And working on keeping the ball on the ground, hopefully to get it through holes."

From there on out, Bautze and BC High starter Dan Cobban dominated the tempo of the game. Cobban avoided any jams until the bottom of the seventh inning, when Shane Sefton started off the inning with a base hit. Bautze bunted to the first base side soon after, and Cobban bobbled the ball before he could get a decent toss over to first.

With runners on first and second and no outs, Fredericks made the decision to pinch-hit Kieran Pathak. The move paid dividends, as Pathak’s sacrifice bunt advanced the runners to second and third.

The next batter, Dylan DeFlorio, was intentionally walked—bringing up Carroll with the bases loaded. Carroll wasted no time, hitting a line drive up the middle on the first pitch he saw to win the game.

“The whole game I was seeing fastballs, so I just wanted to be aggressive at the plate and I didn’t want to get down in the count," Carroll said. "First ball I saw, I took a hack at it, and got up lucky for a single."

Fredericks added, on Carroll’s final at-bat, “That’s our best player, they put our best player at the plate. So if we’re going to beat BC High, it’s going to be with our best player. He gave us the best shot, got into one and got a nice pitch to hit.”

Fredericks admitted he was skeptical on how his team would come to perform, saying he kicked them off the field during pre-game for a lack of effort.

“There are some games we’ve executed and some games we haven’t," he said. "Today we had to kick them off the field. They came with a horrible attitude, a horrible effort [before the game]. On their own, wherever they went for a half an hour, they found it, figured it out, and came and matched BC High,” the coach said after the game."

He also sent out a challenge to his team after the game. A relatively young, but talented squad, Lincoln-Sudbury has taken its’ lumps this year, and Fredericks wants to see a more consistent effort from his squad from here on out.

“We worry about trying to get better, I tell them all the time that it’s not about the result, it’s about trying to get better. We got better today, but, we got better against Westford and then we laid an egg the next day against [Acton-Boxborough],” Fredericks said.

"So we’ll see how we do against Waltham, will we be two steps forward one step back again? Or will we take two more steps?”

MARLBOROUGH, Mass. -- Scoring two goals in under a minute is rare enough, but two shorthanded goals? That’s a true rarity.

The planets aligned for No. 23 Lincoln-Sudbury Wednesday afternoon at the New England Sports Center. Buoyed by two shorthanded goals in 52 seconds, the Warriors defeated Tewksbury, 4-2, in a big DCL/MVC Division 2 matchup.

“We’ve scored a good number of shorthanded goals this year,” L-S head coach Peter Elenbaas said. “We’ve got some guys with some speed. They did a terrific job.”

After a tentative first 20-plus minutes by both sides, Warrior senior Jordan Dow broke through on a two-on-one break and slotted the puck home after whiffing on the first attempt. Dow added an empty-net goal in the final minute of the game to seal the victory.

Fellow senior Shane Sefton got in on the man-down fun with a short shot that snuck through Kyle Paquette’s 5-hole to give the Warriors a 2-0 lead and forced the Redmen into damage control.

“We consider our power play to be really good,” Tewksbury head coach Derek Doherty said. “They did a pretty good job. They forced us to create turnovers and we did.”

Sefton added the eventual game-winning goal late in the second when a fluky bounce put the puck on his stick at the top of the crease and he buried it.

The Redman came alive in the third period thanks to an early goal from Shannon Alukonis. Tewksbury continued to buzz around the offensive zone for much of the early part of the third but couldn’t put another past Erik Kessler, who finished the game with 13 saves.

“We didn’t play hard the first two periods, we came to play the third period,” Doherty said. “You need to play three periods to win a hockey game and Lincoln-Sudbury came out and outplayed us the first two periods. That’s where the game was won.”

The Redmen made a final run in the last three minutes. It started, ironically enough, with a shorthanded goal from Ryan Petti who took a pass from his brother Derek and blasted it past Kessler.

Tewksbury pulled Paquette in the final minute the final Redmen attack wasn’t enough.

“The boys have been psyched for this for weeks,” Dow said. “We really had guys step up today. We talked about earning it all week in practice. This is huge.”

UNSURE HOCKEY
Both coaches acknowledged that their teams played tentative hockey for stretches. Elenbaas said that it might have been a case of big-game butterflies.

“I think both teams were looking at this like ‘Whoa this is a huge game. Both of us have big records’,” Elenbaas said. “Everyone looked like they were waiting for the play to come to them.”

For the Redmen, it was only the third time all season they were held under three goals. Doherty was at a loss as to his team’s lack of production.

“We’ve been putting the puck in the net, but tonight I don’t know what it is,” Doherty said. “Maybe it’s playing an afternoon game. Make no excuses L-S is a good team.”

MONDAY REDUX
Neither team will have to wait long for a rematch as the two teams will square off Monday afternoon in Tewksbury. Both coaches said there was much to improve heading into Monday’s matinee.

“We’ve got to play better on the power play, and that’s coaching,” Elenbaas said. “We still have to play better without the puck."

“This time of year you want to start trending up," Doherty added. You don’t want to be leveling off or trending down. I’m sure we’ll have round two on Monday and it’ll be a good one.”