By Cliff White
Staff Writer
     The Kennebunk boys’ lacrosse team was down against undefeated Scarborough last Thursday night on the Red Storms’ home turf. Down by a score of 4-2 at with a minute left to play in the second quarter, to be exact. But they were never out.
Chris Kain scored with 35 seconds left before halftime, and Conor Finn scored two goals in the third quarter to give Kennebunk the tie and then the lead, while the Rams’ defense held the Red Storm scoreless throughout the entire second half to give Kennebunk the 6-4 win.
 “That’s been our M.O. recently, coming from behind,” Kennebunk Coach Charlie Burch said. “We don’t panic, even if we get down. We stay close. We make it hard for teams to get away from us.”
The teams played close and balanced lacrosse for much of the first half. Though Scarborough controlled possession for the early minutes of the first quarter, it was Kennebunk tri-captain Kain who led off the scoring six minutes into the game. Kain tallied after picking up the rebound of fellow Rams attackman Finn’s wraparound shot, which had banged off the post. At the time, both teams were down a man due to penalties.
    Scarborough sharpshooter Jake Barrett evened up the score soon after with a sidearm blast off a pass from teammate Ryan Hunt that set Barrett up perfectly. Thirty seconds after Barrett’s goal, Kennebunk’s Noel Graydon scored on a hard shot from twenty feet out off a pass from Chris Gassman. Kennebunk ended the first period up 2-1.
    The second quarter was dominated by Scarborough. Barrett continued his hot shooting when he scored at the 8:30 mark of the period to tie the game at 2-2. Less than a minute later, he scored again for the hat trick, finishing off a great effort by his teammate Brent Mayo, who had zigzagged through the Kennebunk defense to set up the goal. Soon after, Scarborough had captured all momentum when the Red Storm’s Billy Kramer rocketed a goal in at 5:40 left in the second quarter.
    Yet down 4-2, the Kennebunk Rams had bent, but not broken. With 35 seconds left in the half, they clawed their way back into a game that Scarborough had failed to put out of their reach, when Chris Kain put in a nice-angled shot from left of the goal-crease. Going into halftime, Kennebunk all of a sudden was right back in the game.
    The Rams rushed into the second half with momentum on their side, and while they controlled the ball for most of the first five minutes of play, the score remained unchanged. However, Kennebunk’s face-off specialist Casey Riley knocked down a Scarborough pass, picked up the ground ball, ran down the field, and dished off to Conor Finn, who launched a powerful shot as he was passing left to right in front of the goal that splashed the left-middle portion of the net to tie the score at 4-4.
    “Casey [Riley]  was winning face-offs and ground balls,” said Finn. “I kept cutting in, he got me the ball, and I found an opening and I tried to rip it.”
    Only twenty seconds after Finn’s goal, Scarborough goalie Phil Lambert, perhaps sensing that his team’s offense was not going to put up the numbers in the second half that it had in the first, made an outstanding save after he was caught out of position. Standing to the right of the crease and seeing that Finn was about to shoot, Lambert dove to his left and, horizontal in the air, blocked the shot from going into the net. Lambert had nine saves in the game.
    Finn and the rest of the Kennebunk squad, however, were not to be denied. With 3:33 left in the third quarter, Finn scored the go-ahead goal, culminating a long offensive possession. Finn had two goals and two assists on the night.
    The stars for Kennebunk in the fourth quarter, despite Gassman’s goal for the Rams at 8:15 to play, were the defense and goalie Cullen Finn. Finn had 18 saves on the night, seven of those coming in the fourth quarter, as he shut down the Red Storm  attack in the second half. Scarborough never let up on its attack, but had nothing to show for it when the half — and the game — ended.
    “I think Scarborough got a little frustrated, and began to force shots on offense in the fourth quarter,” Burch said. “And Cullen [Finn] is going stop outside shots.”
    The win was an important one for the Rams (10-2), as they handed Scarborough (11-1) its first loss of its season in both teams’ last game of the regular season. It gives the Rams great momentum heading into the playoffs, which begin Monday. Kennebunk is the number one seed in the Western Maine Class B playoffs that started on June 6. The Rams will play tomorrow (Saturday, June 9) in a semi-final game against the winner of Cheverus and Waynflete.