Kingston men’s lacrosse game called off early due to shattered helmet

Despite loss the Kingston men were in good spirits after the game. Photo: Synne Johnsson

The Kingston men’s lacrosse game against Sussex University ended with a bang after a shot at the Kingston goalkeeper resulted in a shattered neck protector on Wednesday November 29.

Halfway into the third quarter Kingston goalkeeper Zachary Fountain got a bit of a shock when a shot at goal from Sussex’s Matt Androchow hit the helmet’s neck protector and shattered it, forcing the teams to end the match at 13-1 to Sussex.

”It was quite a wide scoring loss but towards the end of the third quarter someone broke our keeper’s helmet and we only had one,” captain Connor Mottrom said. ”We weren’t happy to carry on without a neck quard so we decided to scrap the keepers, interchange the teams and play a friendly for the last quarter, ending the score at 13-1.”

Zachary Fountain holding the broken helmet. Photo: Synne Johnsson
Zachary Fountain holding the broken helmet.
Photo: Synne Johnsson

The Kingston men struggled to create chances against Sussex and spent most of the game in defence, where Sussex domintated and created most of the game’s chances.

The game’s first goal came only two minutes into the game from Sussex’s Guillaume Hearn, who got the ball right in front of the goal and easily shipped it in.

The second goal came straight after when Xavier Heath ran the ball to Kingston’s half and passed it on to Steven Docker, who made it 2-0 to the opposition.

The third in a row for the Sussex men came not long after when Hearn got the ball again, easily dodged through the Kingston defence and fired it into the back of the net.

Kingston’s only goal was a stroke of luck when Mohammed Al-Hashimy tried to pass the ball on but instead hit the Sussex keeper and the ball bounced into its goal, making it 3-1.

Sussex got their fourth goal when Callum Hewlett passed the ball to the team’s Canadian star player Matt Androchow, who was nicely placed right in front of the goal and easily shot it straight into the net.

Towards the end of the first quarter Hewlett scored two goals in a row, the last one was dodged by Androchow past several Kingston defenders before passing the ball on, starting the second quarter 6-1 up.

The second quarter started like the last one ended: Hewlett scoring yet another goal, followed by another one from Androchow, the only two highlights from the second quarter.

The third quarter started with Androchow having two assists, first one to Hewlett and the second one to Hearn, making it 10-1.

Three more shots went in before the game was called off, two of them from Hearn and the last one from Hewlett.

The game ended after the third quarter with a final score of 13-1, but the two teams decided to play a last quarter without goalkeepers just for fun.

”It was really fun, it was a good shout at the Sussex boys, they are really good sportsmen and leave the score at 13-1 and play the rest as a friendly,” Mottrom said.