Old Lyme — Jacob Fenton appeared to be the last guy who would find some perspective Saturday afternoon. His high school lacrosse career just ended. He held an ice bag to his elbow. Sweaty, irritated, disappointed.

And yet he managed to explode a happy explosion in the wake of third-seeded Old Lyme's season-ending loss in the state quarterfinals. He told his teammates in high octaves that the season was a success – Shoreline champs, after all – and that's what they should remember.

Sure beats the immediacy of the moment, too, after the 17-4 loss to No. 6 East Catholic in the Class S boys' lacrosse quarterfinals.

"We came to this game as the underdog even though we ranked higher than them," Fenton, a senior, said. "Our coach was talking about the future, but I wanted our guys to leave this field with a good attitude. I was trying to put this season in perspective. We won Shorelines and that's what I wanted them to go away thinking about."

The Wildcats (16-4) held one lead all afternoon: 1-0 on Ian Humphreys' early goal. After that, the game became an avalanche of lost faceoffs and East Catholic goals.

"They're a good team," Old Lyme coach Mike Murphy said. "Just looking at who they played. We didn't get a chance to see them, but from the standpoint of looking at scores and talking to other coaches, they're a very good team. Everything had to work well for us."

East had a 5-2 lead midway through the second period until Old Lyme rallied to within one on goals by Fenton and Henry Hunt. Game on. Or not. East didn't allow another goal the rest of the game. Connor Stull, Tom Callahan and Jake McCarthy scored before halftime to make it 8-4 before Nick Mendoza scored twice in the first minute of the third period.

"The faceoffs lost and their possessions made us have to play an awful lot of defense," Murphy said. "We didn't get that many opportunities with the ball. We had to make the most of them and we didn't. We played too much defense."

The Wildcats lose but three seniors: Fenton, Sal Tinnerello and Rowan Hallahan.

"We have a lot of younger players. Our program is developing," Murphy said. "It's a disappointing loss, but overall, a lot of guys got a lot of experience. We lost 10 or 11 seniors last year. We're obviously looking forward to next year."

m.dimauro@theday.com

Twitter:@BCgenius