Season-defining moments aren’t seen that way until after they take place, yet the Marcellus boys lacrosse team already has a pretty good idea which game might stand out above all others in 2016, barring a championship run in the Section III playoffs.
On the way to what looked like yet another disheartening defeat to its archrival Skaneateles last Tuesday night, the Mustangs made a stunning turnaround in the fourth quarter and went from a four-goal deficit to beating the Lakers 14-13.
Going into the game, Marcellus was 2-2. Skaneateles was 2-1, but had just picked up a 10-4 road win over the same Fayetteville-Manlius team the Mustangs had defeated by a single goal, 12-11, at home a week earlier.
Skaneateles may have gone into Marcellus too confident. If so, that dissipated during a closely fought first half where the Mustangs inched out in front and withstood plenty of charges, leaving the Lakers trailing by one, 7-6, at the break.
A strange second half followed. With the line of Jack VanSlyke, Reggie Buell and Sam Duggan impossible to contain, Skaneateles outscored Marcellus 7-2 in the third quarter,p putting Marcellus in a 13-9 deficit. One more push would lead to another routine win over a Mustangs side it has mostly handled in recent years.
Just in time, though, Marcellus rose again. Dan Cusick kept Skaneateles out of the net throughout the final period, running his total to 21 saves, and his stops sparked the Mustangs on the other end, too, as it rocked the Lakers for five unanswered goals and then made key stops in the final seconds to hang on to that slim lead.
Matt Hutchings, with six goals and one assist, and Ross Filtch, with four goals and two assists, led the comeback, with Shane Rohe adding two goals and two assists. Riley Donovan and Gabe Van Order gained the other goals as Donovan, Rob Lobello and Matt Reich earned assists. They negated what Buell (five goals, one assist), Duggan (four goals, two assists) and VanSlyke (two goals, four assists) put together.
Now the question was whether the Mustangs’ momentum would carry over to its visit to Alibrandi Stadium Thursday night when it took on Christian Brothers Academy.
Perhaps the Brothers expected a letdown – but Marcellus didn’t oblige, instead prevailing 10-7 with a fierce defense that, again anchored by Cusick (who made 17 saves), held CBA to one goal in the first half.
Building up a 9-3 lead through three periods (mostly through a 5-2 third-quarter push), the Mustangs spread things around, too. Eight different players scored, with Hutchings getting two goals and two assists and Van Order adding two goals and one assist. Rohe, Donovan, Reich, Lobello, Nate Garlow and Kieran Tierney also scored.
Westhill, who was no. 6 in the first state Class C rankings of the spring, had a chance at its own landmark win hours before Marcellus rallied against Skaneateles, but instead got run over in the first quarter of a 16-7 defeat to Jamesville-DeWitt.
Long the reigning power in the local Class B ranks, the defending sectional champion Red Rams were no. 3 in the state Class B poll and showed why that was the case, displaying energy, skill and verve throughout a 6-0 first-quarter blitz.
The getaway began with J-D netting three goals in a span of 56 seconds midway through the period, and continued when the Rams scored twice more within 23 seconds later in the quarter.
And even when Westhill got on the board in the second period, closing the gap to 7-3, Griffin Cook’s goal 3.8 seconds before halftime dissipated that momentum, and the Warriors never got closer than five goals the rest of the way, constantly burned by J-D attacker Grayson Burns, whose seven goals matched the Warriors’ entire output.
Both of Ryan Zimmerman’s goals came in the second half. Hunter Waddington also scored twice, while Casey Rogers and Luke McAnaney each got one goal and one assist as Chase Gedney added an assist. To help Burns, J-D saw Cook score four times and add two assists, with Charlie Digristina adding three goals and one assist.
Jordan-Elbridge found some success last Tuesday night at Oswego, defeating the Buccaneers 16-12. The Eagles broke up a 4-4 tie with a 4-1 push through the second quarter, and though the Buccaneers closed the gap a bit, J-E did get away late.
Sam Robles and Hunter Brunelle both scored four times, with Robles adding three assists. Dale Wagner had three goals and one assist, with Dylan Dunham and Jacob Schwarting each getting two goals and two assists. Colby Falcone had the other goal as Nick Hallinan and Taylor Rivenburgh combined for 18 saves.
Unfortunately for the Eagles, its next assignment on Friday was facing the same Cazenovia side that had just pummeled West Genesee earlier in the week. J-E had it tied, 2-2, through one quarter, but then the Lakers erupted for eight straight goals in the second period and went on to prevail 14-4.
Other than that outburst, the Eagles did contain Cazenovia, seeing Hallinan and Rivenburgh earn 14 total saves. Wagner got two of J-E’s four goals, while Robles and Dunham had the others and Logan Schwarting got an assist. The Lakers’ top player, Cole Willard, was held to two goals and one assist, but the work of Jake Lewis (five goals, one assist) and Tom Bragg (three goals, two assists) made up for it.
