Middletown Youth Lacrosse Wins Championship Game

From Middletown Youth Lacrosse

What do you get when you take a third year program, dedicated coaches, 19 boys, and an undefeated season — a nail biting Championship win!

Middletown Youth Lacrosse Senior team won their first ever championship game on Sunday, June 8 against Somers in the play-off games in South Windsor.

Coached by Justin Deegan and assisted by Kevin Livengood and Jonathan Bechtel the team went 10-0 in their regular season. Their quarter-final game was against Glastonbury, a program that is synonymous with lacrosse. Middletown advanced to the finals with a 6-5 win over Burlington in the semi-final game played in South Windsor. 

The weather couldn’t have been more perfect for lacrosse. Middletown scored the first goal of the game. Somers shot off four goals after that, and by the end of the first half Middletown was down 4-2, but they didn’t give up. Middletown came back to tie the game 5-5 from there it was one-for-one goals with Middletown taking the lead. They held onto the ball the last two minutes of the game to take the win 8-7 over Somers.

“We played with heart and as a team. The team never gave up even if we were down by several goals. We always stuck together as a team, battled back, and finished strong. We knew that mistakes would happen but instead of blaming someone for making a mistake we corrected it and put in the past and kept playing” stated Deegan.

The coaches’ philosophy throughout the season was to focus on teaching the basics of the game even as we were winning throughout the season. “Instead of moving on to new things every week we perfected the basic concepts of play that we needed to continue winning games.  We never accepted anything but perfection and made sure that the players realized there was more to the game than winning. We emphasized sportsmanship, team play, and the importance of dedication. (Literally had a player playing in a cast). We made sure the kids realized that it was never about winning but about how well you performed. If we played as hard as we could and left everything we had on the field then we would never be upset with ourselves. We never let winning slow us down, we practiced harder after each win and made sure that the players realized that we can always get better,” stated Deegan 

Bechtel summed it up nicely “It was a great win for a young program.”

For additional details visit www.middletownyouthlacrosse.org, or email questions tomiddletownyouthlacrosse@gmail.com.