Phillylacrosse.com, Posted 7/31/14
The Freedom 2021 lacrosse team won its second championship of the summer in Hershey last weekend at The Chocolatetown Shootout.
Freedom went 4-0 in pool play and received a bye into the finals on Sunday vs. the Rochester Flyers from upstate NY. Rochester came out strong and held a 5-1 halftime lead despite strong goalie play from Ben Tompkins. The Freedom boys regrouped and started to chip away at the lead with two goals by Reilly Dugan, Braeden Lange and Sean Kaiser while also controlling the face off X with Justin Turley and Dugan. Tommy O’Malley was strong in the cage.
With less than two2 minutes remaining, Lange scored to send the game into OT where Turley found Dugan for the game winner.
Freedom opened on Saturday with a come-from-behind 9-5 win over Daler Nation (N.Y.), and then downed the Long Island Jesters and Blue Mountain LC from the Elizabethtown area.
During Saturday’s action the team was led by its defense, which only gave up seven goals in those three games, and an offense that averaged over 10 goals per game with PJ Oppenheimer leading the scoring. Freedom also defeated Lebanon Valley LC Sunday morning to close pool play.
Over the entire weekend the Freedom boys’ defense was stingy, only giving up 16 goals in five games. In goal and close defense it was led by Tommy O’Malley, Ben Tompkins, JD Shimer, Drew Deves, Vincent Cresci, Aiden Coulter and Luke Shoemaker. Offensively, the team scored 50+ goals and showed standout ball movement. The offense was led by PJ Oppenheimer, Dylan McMahon, Tyler Rodriguez, Justin Wescoat, Jakob Voehringer, Justin Sanelli, Sam Forte, Jack Giles, Egan Butala, Will Delaney, as well as Dugan, Lange, and Turley.
