Though it was a neighborhood battle, the Jamesville-DeWitt and East Syracuse-Minoa boys lacrosse teams went out of the way to meet each other.
With its home field still drying out from the April 15 snowstorm, the Red Rams moved last Thursday’s game to Homer High School’s turf.
However, that change of venue did not change the quality of J-D’s play, as it went out and whipped the Spartans by a score of 16-6.
Much of the first half was spent in ESM’s end. Patient and poised, the Rams built a 7-1 lead, enough of a margin so that, when the Spartans came to life in the second half, J-D could provide a steady answer.
Depth and balance marked the Rams’ approach. John Clark led with three goals and two assists, while Jim Marshall also found the net three times. George Kingma contributed a career-best four assists.
Mike Centra stepped up, scoring twice and adding a pair of assists as Christian Daly and Jeff Vetter matched that two-goal output. Jake Bratek, Tom Grover, Mike Edwards and Mac Keefus came up with single goals.
Matt Cushing paced the Spartans with his own three-goal hat trick as Adam Vlassis, Alex Donlick and Andy Heagle came up with single tallies. Chris Ehde, under attack for much of the night, finished with 14 saves.
For J-D, this impressive effort partially atoned for the fact that last Tuesday’s anticipated showdown with Carthage was snowed out, not to be made up until May 14.
Two days after falling to the Red Rams, ESM recovered in a big way, meeting Homer at Spartan Stadium and dumping the Trojans 14-7.
For a half, the Trojans kept it close, but the Spartans gradually pulled away in the last periods, outscoring Homer 10-4. Cody Young was the main catalyst, setting a career mark with six assists.
David Miller stepped up with a three-goal outing as Cushing, Vlassis, John Albanese and Parker Gazda each scored twice. Young, Donlick and Brian Roberts had one-goal outings.
Meanwhile, J-D routed Fulton, 16-3. Daly had four goals and one assist as the Rams grabbed an 8-0 lead by the end of the first quarter and never got caught.
Clark, Kingma and Grover each scored twice, with Clark adding two assists. Marshall, Centra, Bratek, Keefus, Edwards and Nick Colabelli scored, too.
Having improved to 4-3, ESM visits New Hartford Thursday night. J-D, meanwhile, beat Fulton on Saturday to improve to 7-2 on the season and draws Whitesboro and Homer this week.