GARDINER — Whether it was scoring goals himself or setting his teammates up for others, Jimmy Fowler did not wait long to make an impact Thursday afternoon.
A senior on the Winslow High School boys lacrosse team, Fowler scored or assisted on the Black Raiders’ first five goals as Winslow (4-3 Class B North) went on to deal Gardiner a 12-5 defeat at Hoch Field.
Fowler finished the contest with three goals and six assists while Bryce Hillier scored five times. Sam Lambrecht added a goal and three assists while Nick Gurney made 11 saves. Tristan Hebert and Logan Clark each scored twice for Gardiner (3-6 Class B North) while Marshall Clements and Kyle Johnson each had a pair of assists.
“We knew (Thursday) was a big day so we really prepared for it,” Fowler said. “We’re really starting to get the gears grinding.”
After neither team got on the scoreboard through the opening five minutes, Winslow finally got on the board with 6:26 remaining in the first quarter when Fowler finished off a feed from Lambrecht.
“We like to try to see how the defense plays so we saw that they were marking me up,” Fowler said. “We started moving it around and we finally found where their flaw was. They weren’t always looking at me so I could just cut across.”
Fowler added another score 2:01 later, and then proceeded to set Lambrecht, Jake Houghton and Hillier up for scores to put Winslow ahead 5-0 after the first quarter.
The lead grew to 6-0 early in the second on a goal from Hillier before the Tigers finally got on the board with 6:04 left in the quarter when Michael Poirier whipped a sidearm shot past Gurney.
Winslow kept the pressure on, though, getting a goal with less than two seconds left in the first half and opening the third quarter with three more unanswered scores to take a commanding 10-1 advantage.
Gardiner tried to spark a comeback in the final four minutes of the third quarter with a goal from Hebert sandwiched around two from Clark to cut it to 10-4, but the Tigers could not draw any closer from there.
“We still haven’t figured it out 100 percent,” Winslow coach Bruce Lambrecht said. “We’re still waiting to play a complete game and we were lucky to come out of Gardiner with a win.”
The Tigers still have some work to do if they hope to sneak into the playoffs. Gardiner hosts St. Dominic (0-9 Class B North) in its next game Monday, but closes with a pair of tough road games at Maranacook/Winthrop (6-2 Class B North) on Wednesday and Messalonskee (7-2 Class A North) on May 31.
Winslow, meanwhile, still has a little less than half of its schedule remaining and will have an opportunity to play its way into a home playoff game in the opening round of the postseason. Only two teams — Camden Hills (9-0) and Lawrence (5-4) — have winning records among the Black Raiders’ final five opponents.
“We’ve got a huge game against undefeated Camden on Saturday,” Bruce Lambrecht said. “We played them last year in Camden. That was a tough game and they’re a year older, a year bigger and stronger. They’re well-coached so that will be all of our focus in practice (Friday), to make sure we’re ready for that.”
Evan Crawley — 621-5640
ecrawley@mainetoday.com
Twitter: @Evan_Crawley
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