Dragons a Little Too Green for Toms River East

Already down six goals with halftime just four minutes away, a common response for many teams is to go through the motions, hoping halftime comes sooner than later. The Brick Green Dragons did the opposite at their game Monday night.

Although in the end the result was not what they had hoped for, the progress on the field could not be denied.

"They're hard working kids," said Brick head coach Dan Rosa. "They want to win, and when they play the way they did at times for a full game they certainly can."

With 4:09 left in the second quarter Mark Bixenman took a David Kearns pass to stop the bleeding and start a Brick rally. Shortly after the Toms River East Raiders would score again to re-establish a six goal lead and remind the Dragons it was not going to be an easy task.

Patrick Barrow would find the back of the net for the Dragons with 1:54 still to play before the first half would end with the Raiders holding an 8-3 lead.

The Dragons decided they were going to go all out in a comeback attempt, something many dismissed as the score was 7-1 East at one point.

Unlike games against Colts Neck and Jackson Memorial, where their counterparts jumped out to early leads and not being able to recover, Brick battled back and made it into a game.

"Being a young team, we are just getting to that stage now of maturing and believing in each other. They realize how important the beginning of the game is, it's lacrosse, sometimes runs like that happen." said Rosa, speaking about the flat start leading to a 7-1 deficit.

Brendan Dowd got the Dragons on board scoring with nine seconds left to play in the first quarter, which at the time, made the score 5-1 East.

After being down 7-1, Brick would out score East 8-6 the rest of the game.

Two separate times the gap was closed to three goals. Bixenman swept the ball into the net out of a scrum to make the score 9-6 with 2:06 left to play in the third quarter. Toms River East scored two quick goals to make the score 11-6, but Brick was not finished.

Patrick Barrow would score his third of the game cutting to the net from the corner. A minute later, a heads-up Justin Sieburt keep created a broken play in which Dowd scored, making it 11-8.

The Raiders won a hard earned game after holding off the comeback and scoring twice more as the Dragons had little with which to answer.

Bixenman played well, scoring three goals and being very involved in the offense

"He's another guy definitely maturing for us," said Rosa.