The Highland boys’ lacrosse team was shorthanded for its non-league contest against the Newburgh Free Academy Goldbacks on Friday night.

But they had what they needed for a 14-2 victory on the turf at Marlboro High School.

“I thought we came together,” Highland coach Tom Schlappich said.

“We were a little shorthanded. We were missing quite a few kids, but they did a nice job. We had some guys playing out of position tonight. We had middies playing attack. It affected our bench, but everyone stepped up.”

That may have contributed to the Huskies’ slow start as they had less than 10 minutes when Frankie Guidi’s goal opened the scoring, and with it the floodgates.

“We had some bugs to work out,” Schlappich said. “I thought Newburgh came out quite well, early on. They tested a lot of ground balls and I thought they did a nice job. They’re a very scrappy team.”

From there, the Huskies’ offense took off as they scored four goals in the final 2:37 of the first quarter to take a 4-0 lead.

They tacked on three more in the second quarter to take a 7-0 lead at halftime.

The offense was fueled by Logan Zehr’s faceoff play. He won every faceoff until late in the fourth quarter. That set up the Huskies for plenty of success. He also had three goals.

“It’s incredible,” Schlappich said. “You can play make-it, take-it. It’s a blessing to have someone like that.”

Dean Klotz led the Huskies’ offense with four goals and an assist. Frankie Guidi had two goals and an assist, while Alec Schlosser scored two goals. Ben Canino, Matt Castellani, and Osei Adoma each had a goal and an assist.
Landen Zehr made 11 saves in the cage.

Angelo Beade and Billy Goldstein each had a goal for the Goldbacks.

Klotz scored four goals and had two assists in the Huskies’ 9-7 loss to the Valley Central Vikings on Wednesday.

A.J. Palmer had two goals and Guidi had a goal. Castellani and Mike Murphy had an assist each.

Bryson Antel led the Vikings with three goals. Gavin Starr had two goals and three assists.

Landen Zehr made 15 saves for the Huskies.

“We have a lot of work to do, but we’re taking the right steps,” Schlappich said. “Today was one of those steps forward and I’m hoping that next week with practice, we’ll be able to continue to grow, to learn from our mistakes. Hopefully by the end of next week, we’ll have two games and we’ll be able to continue to improve.”