Fahey’s OT goal gives Prep D1 state championship

CAMBRIDGE – The dynasty is officially dethroned.For the past six seasons, the Duxbury boys lacrosse team had been kings of Division 1. On Wednesday at Harvard Stadium, the Dragons were officially knocked from their perch by their archrivals: St. John’s Prep.After playing a less than stellar first half on Wednesday that saw them trailing 7-3 at the break, the Eagles clawed back to dramatically tie the game on Garrett Campbell’s goal with 7.6 seconds left in regulation. The Prep then won the game at the 2:20 mark of the first overtime when All-America defender James Fahey went coast-to-coast and beat Dragon goalie Mickey Zaverucha to give the Eagles a heart-stopping 12-11 win in one of the most memorable state finals in any sport this millennium.”Duxbury is the standard and the model that everyone tries to copy,” St. John’s coach John Roy said. “They’re fantastic, so it’s huge for us. To be here and do this is such a great feeling.”The Eagles are the first team since Beverly in 2003 to hoist the gold-plated trophy over the Dragons. To get there, though, it took an unlikely finish.Duxbury led 10-7 with 7:13 left when Brian Barry completed a hat trick. But Garrett Campbell’s goal with 4:31 left, assisted by Colin Blackwell, set the scene for a ridiculous finish.”Duxbury is phenomenal,” Campbell said. “And we knew that they would come in confident.”Less than a minute later, Campbell fought off a defender and fired home a shot to cut the lead to a goal. John Farrow completed what was a seemingly improbable comeback with 1:51 left when he beat Zaverucha to tie the game.The Dragons (22-2) had a chance to go back in front with a minute to go but turned the ball over, giving the Eagles (20-2) a shot to push ahead. Campbell cut to the net but rang his shot off the left post with 40 ticks remaining.Off the ensuing transition, Barry fed Kane Haffey for a rifle shot past Nick Triano with 21.3 seconds left to give Duxbury the lead at 11-10. The Eagles called timeout to set up a play for the final seconds.Mark MacDonald won the faceoff and got the loose ball to Blackwell, who stormed through the heart of the Duxbury defense but rang another shot off the post. Campbell, however, was in the right place to shovel home the loose ball and deadlock the teams after regulation.”Mark is such a great faceoff guy and we put Blackwell, our best loose ball guy, on the wing so he could get him the ball,” Roy said. “And that was a great play for him to get in there and get a shot off.”Duxbury got the first possession in overtime but couldn’t get anything done. The Eagles also had a shot with the ball but turned it over at midfield, giving the Dragons a fast break chance. But defender Chris Coady thwarted the chance in close, allowing Fahey to collect the loose change and take off upfield.With Campbell running interference for him, Fahey stormed up the left wing untouched and fired a high shot past Zaverucha to put a sudden end to six years of Dragon dominance.”James has, like, eight or nine goals this season, so when I saw him coming up with the ball, I kind of had a good feeling,” Campbell said. “I was able to take my guy to the middle, so he had all kinds of room.”The Dragons had taken the Prep out of its game in the opening half, rattling off five straight goals after St. John’s took a 1-0 lead on a Blackwell goal.”We came out and it took a little while for us to adjust to everything here,” Roy said.The Prep’s Matt Scalise, Farrow and Jimmy O’Connell each scored to cut the lead to 8-6 heading to the fourth. Bobby Gallihue’s goal cut further into the lead before the Dragons pulled back in front by three ? setting the stage for an epic finish to an epic contest.