CHARLOTTE, N.C. – The Charlotte Hounds needed a little inspiration and a lot of goals heading into the fourth quarter of Saturday’s Major League Lacrosse match against the Boston Cannons.
The Hounds found both, thanks to a little pep talk from goalkeeper Adam Ghitelman. Charlotte rallied from a three-point deficit in the final period, and its defense shut down the Cannons for most of the quarter en route to a 15-12 victory at American Legion Memorial Stadium.
John Haus scored two of his three goals in the fourth quarter, and Mike Sawyer’s two-pointer kicked off a five-point run that put Charlotte (4-5) ahead to stay and ended its five-game losing streak against Boston (4-5).
The win also kept the Hounds in the hunt for a berth in the MLL playoffs, moving them into a three-way tie for fourth place with the Cannons and the Florida Launch. Will Manny had three goals and two assists, and Stephen Berger added two goals and three assists for Boston, which had pulled ahead 9-6 at the end of the third quarter thanks to a four-goal run.
Tied 5-5 at the half, Charlotte had pulled ahead on Mike Chanenchuk’s goal with 8:43 left in the third quarter. But the Cannons went on a tear soon after, with goals by Berger, Brodie Merrill, Brent Adams and Paul Rabil putting Boston in the lead–and from appearances, in command of the game.
That’s when Ghitelman gave his little pep talk.
“Adam Ghitelman came to our huddle at the beginning of the fourth quarter and said ‘This is it for us, guys–if we want to go to the playoffs, we’ve got to buckle down right now. Either that, or we can throw in the towel right now,’” Haus said.
“Everybody responded really well to that, and it kinda put us over the top in the fourth quarter.”
Sawyer’s second two-pointer of the season with 13:08 left in the fourth quarter cut the Cannons’ lead down to a point. Haus scored 72 seconds later to tie the game, and Sawyer added another goal 23 seconds after that to put the Hounds on top to stay.
“This was going to make or break our season–we just needed to get together as a group and realize that,” said Ghitelman, who had 19 saves–six in the fourth quarter alone–in goal for Charlotte. “We responded as well as any team I’ve seen. They got to us in that third quarter, but we bounced back in that fourth.”
The Hounds went on to outscore Boston 9-3 in the fourth quarter, with six different players scoring goals–Sawyer and Haus with two each, and one each by Chanenchuk, Justin Ward, Matt Danowski and Geoff Snider.
“Nine goals was big, but we had balanced scoring throughout the game,” Charlotte coach Mike Cerino said. “A lot of guys finished with two or three goals, and Adam Ghitelman gave us a great effort in the goal.”
Ward finished with a season-best two goals and three assists for the Hounds, Chanenchuk added two goals and two assists, and Danowski and Jake Tripucka had two goals each. Adams and Kevin Buchanan finished with two goals each for Boston.
