WATERVILLE — The game wasn’t yet three minutes old, and the Cony High School boys lacrosse team trailed Winslow by two goals. Cony coach Chad Foye called a timeout, and he wasn’t happy.

“We just talked about the little things we’ve talked about all year long. Battling hard, setting a high standard for ourselves and making sure we maintain that standard,” Foye said. “I think we started out slow. We got on our heals a little. You don’t have to be off much to be off, and we were off enough.”

Coming out of that timeout, the Rams were on, although it took a few minutes to register on the scoreboard. Cony scored three goals in the final five minutes of the first quarter to take a lead it would never relinquish, earning an 11-8 win over the Black Raiders at Thomas College.

“I think we stopped pressuring on defense and they took advantage of the space we gave them. They made us pay for it,” Winslow (1-2) coach Bruce Lambrecht said.

Chad Bickford scored the go-ahead third goal for the Rams with 2:22 left in the first quarter.

“Once we got one goal, we just kept going. We knew we were good enough to beat them, we just couldn’t get started. We were complacent in the beginning. I think we came in and underestimated them. They’re a pretty good team,” Cony’s Brett Sproul said.

Ahead 6-4 at the half, Cony (3-0) scored five unanswered goals in the third quarter to take control of the game. Sproul scored three of his four goals in the third quarter. Ball movement was key to the Rams’ run, Sproul said.

“Getting into open space, setting picks and just being open. If people cut in and they’re open, I’ll feed them. It was a great team effort,” Sproul said.

The Black Raiders made it close with four unanswered goals of their own in the fourth quarter. Hunter McCaslin scored twice in the first three minutes of the fourth to cut Cony’s lead to 11-6, and Jimmy Fowler’s goal at 8:43 made it 11-7. Jacob Houghton scored with 1:18 to play for the final margin of victory.

“I think in the second and third quarter, we played pretty well,” Foye said. “They picked up their game in the fourth quarter and we let up a little bit. We stopped winning battles for loose balls. I also thought our passing wasn’t as crisp. Hopefully we learned that from this.”

Added Lambrecht: “It’s going to come down to individual battles. You have to win your one-on-ones, and they’re a very strong and physical team. They’re athletic and skilled. We knew we’d have to play well for four quarters, and we didn’t and they did.”

Travis Lazarczyk — 861-9242

<URL destination=””>tlazarczyk@centralmaine.com

</URL>Twitter: @TLazarczykMTM

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