High school lacrosse: Sparked by second-half rally, Lowville comes back to defeat Watertown once again in lacrosse

Owen Marcolini then finished off a feed from Vokey with one minute and 46 seconds remaining in the third quarter to provide the Red Raiders with their first lead since the second quarter.

Vokey scored with 9:49 left in regulation, with Zehr assisting, to extend the lead to 8-6.

“We just came together as a team,” Scordo said. “I think in the first half we had some mistakes here and there, but we’ve really been emphasizing a team game, team defense, offense all around and we really came together as a team. We played well in the second half, made a few adjustments on some things and I think that helped us out.

“We knew who to stop to beat them, we’ve been talking about it for a couple days, they’ve got some good players as well, they’ve got guys that can score and we’ve got guys that can play defense. So it’s a good matchup.”

Watertown answered with back-to-back goals as Nick Netto scored with 7:53 left, with Trey Urf assisting, and tied the game on an unassisted effort from Michael Lumbis with 4:04 remaining.

Then after Lowville won the ensuing faceoff and then called timeout, Kempney followed with the game winner, taking a feed from Zehr and whipped the ball in with 3:04 remaining.

“I feel like we started playing more as a team,” Kempney said of the second half. “Just moving the ball more, finding the open guy, finding the open shot and just bearing down.”

Earlier, the Red Raiders stormed out to a 3-0 lead on two tallies from Vokey and a goal from Kempney.

But the Cyclones would score the next five goals, including a tally from Teagan Buckley to close the first quarter.

In the next period, Watertown would receive a goal each from Lumbis, Trey Urf, Jack Converse and a pair from Quinn Callahan, whose second goal provided his team with the three-goal lead late in the first half.

“It was a big difference for us between the second and third quarter,” Watertown coach Brian Navarra said. “We finally found a good rhythm on offense in the second quarter, we were moving the ball well, switching fields, dodging and shooting well and feeling pretty good at halftime. And in the third quarter, I’m not really sure, we just kind of killed ourselves with careless turnovers on both sides of the field, and they took advantage of that for sure.”

Callahan and Converse each totaled two goals and one assist to lead the Cyclones offensively.

Goalie Norman Cushman finished with five saves for Watertown (7-4, 3-1).

Watertown, which has won the past six league championships, also had its winning streak in league play halted at 28 games with Thursday’s loss.

“Certainly it’s disappointing,” Navarra said, “We had some goals for this year, we’ve won six Frontier League championships in a row and I guess there’s still an outside opportunity of wining that. But it’s disappointing, we continue to beat ourselves in games this year and that’s no discredit to Lowville, they’re a good team and they move the ball well, they’re aggressive and they do some really nice things, and they value the ball really well.”

With the win, Lowville continued its quest to win a league title and remains in first place in the league, with General Brown (3-0) in second place and Watertown sits in a tie for third with Carthage.

Both the Red Raiders and Cyclones have three league games remaining, with each playing General Brown down the stretch.

Lowville will host the Lions next Thursday and General Brown will play at Watertown on May 19 in the regular season finale for both teams.

“So they’re definitely a good team,” Navarra said of Lowville. “But our team, we’re still really young and we don’t want this to be a rebuilding year. There’s a bunch of young guys who are getting better every day, so for us, just keep our heads high and keep fighting.”