Every week this season, Shore Conference lacrosse fans will have their chance to vote for the Shore Sports Network Boys Lacrosse Player of the Week on our website, with over 60,000 votes cast so far this season.

Lacrosse Player of the Week
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The Player of the Week fan vote winner for Week 5 is Toms River East junior Matt Gannon, who had a pair of huge games to help the Raiders improbably qualify for the Shore Conference Tournament.

Toms River East started the season 0-5, but went on a furious run over the next three weeks to give themselves a chance at reaching the SCT. The Raiders snapped their losing streak and proceeded to win four games in a row before a 7-6 loss to Brick Memorial. They bounced back with a win over Brick to put them in a situation where they needed to win both regular season games early last week to qualify for the SCT.

It started with a 14-12 win over Middletown South, which was ranked No. 10 in the Shore Sports Network Top 10 at the time. Gannon had a monster game with five goals and four assists to lead the way. That evened the Raiders' record at 6-6 and meant their home game with rival Toms River South had an SCT berth on the line. Toms River East came through with a 9-7 win to officially clinch a spot in the tournament and Gannon was again played a major role with three goals and one assist.

Toms River East drew defending champion Rumson-Fair Haven in the first round and lost, 18-1, but Gannon had the lone goal for the Raiders. Gannon and the Raiders got back on track with an 11-7 win over Point Boro and Gannon had one goal and five assists to pace the offense.

Toms River East is now 8-7 and can clinch a spot in the state tournament by beating Red Bank (1-15) on Friday.

Gannon pulled away from Red Bank Catholic's Joey Caputo in the poll to win with 38.93 percent of the vote. Caputo was second and Freehold Township's Josh Nastarowicz was third. Caputo had the game-winning goal in a 10-9 win over Red Bank and Nastarowicz had a big week to reach 100 career goals.

 

Player of the Week Archive

 

Managing editor Bob Badders can be reached at bob.badders@townsquaremedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @Bob_Badders. Like Shore Sports Network on Facebook and subscribe to our YouTube channel for all the latest video highlights. 

 

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