Lynnfield-Bromfield game had plenty of thrills

LOWELL – Taking the field on Saturday at Cawley Stadium for the Division 3 state championship game, Lynnfield coach Brent Munroe knew that his team had to play an almost perfect game to take home the title.Well, Munroe’s team gave him everything it possibly could for 80 minutes of regulation and then fought through exhaustion during overtime. It simply came down to one team making a pretty play to win the game.The supposed weak link of the Pioneers was their defense, and for 87-plus minutes, it had played spectacularly against a powerful Bromfield team. But with 2:25 left in the first overtime, the Trojans took advantage of a mistake by Lynnfield’s back line as Josh Lyvers beat the defense and chipped a shot past netminder Andrew Leader to hand Bromfield a 2-1 win and the school’s seventh state championship.”Our defense has been terrific since the tournament began and they changed our whole chance of winning,” Munroe said. “(Bromfield) was very good and we would have needed to be fortunate to win.”The game-winning goal was one that not many defenses, even one playing as well as Lynnfield’s, could have prevented.Sophomore midfielder Cody Osgood, who alone had four golden chances to win the game himself, picked up the ball at the center stripe and charged down the left wing with Lyvers. Defender Rich Goldthwait tried to make a play on the ball at the top of the penalty area, but Osgood slid the ball past him to a streaking Lyvers.Leader came out to try to cut down the angle on the shot, but Lyvers simply put the ball over him and inside the right post. It is the second time in three seasons that Lyvers has been the hero for Bromfield in a state final overtime session. In 2005, he netted the game-winner in double overtime against Ipswich.”Overtime isn’t about stamina, it’s about competing and drive. And we had to keep competing,” Lyvers said. “Both teams had chances and we were fortunate to score on ours.”Despite the mistake in overtime, Lynnfield wouldn’t have been in the extra session without its defense and especially Leader, who came up huge in the biggest game of his career.”Andrew had a great game and made a couple of unbelievable saves,” Munroe said. “His confidence was growing as the tournament went on.”Leader faced only one shot in the first half, a header goal by Osgood, but he was under constant pressure in the second.He made a diving save on Ben Brown at the seven-minute mark but saved his best for the waning seconds of regulation.After Lynnfield had fanned on a chance to get the go-ahead goal with 10 minutes left, the Trojans cranked up the pressure again, and when Osgood got the ball in the box off a corner kick, he had two point-blank chances.The first shot was stopped by Leader and the rebound came right back to Osgood with a wide-open net in front of him. Leader, however, dove to his left and made a spectacular stop to keep it 1-1.”(Bromfield) did a great job because they had so much pressure on us,” Munroe said.