All season long, the Marcellus and Westhill boys lacrosse teams stared at each other, but from afar, seeing how each other was doing while waiting for the head-to-head collision.
When it finally arrived last Thursday night, the Mustangs were ready for it, steadily building an advantage through the first three periods with big contributions from Ross Filtch and then closing it out late to earn a 16-11 victory over the Warriors.
Going into the game, Westhill stood at no. 10 in the state rankings. Marcellus was eight spots back, at no. 18, but those positions might change after their head-to-head meeting.
During the first half, the pace was intense, and the Mustangs were better suited to it, battling its way to a 10-7 advantage by intermission. This trend continued in the third quarter and the margin grew to five, 15-10, Marcellus able to slow things down in the final period to make sure the Warriors didn’t come back.
Filtch did plenty of damage to the Warriors throughout the night, his eight goals amounting to half the Marcellus output. He had enough help, too, since Matt Hutchings, Riley Donovan, Kieran Tierney and Gabe Van Order each scored twice and Shane Rohe picked up three assists. Matt Reich and Rob Lobello each had one assist.
On Westhill’s side, Casey Rogers and Matt McAnaney led with three goals apiece, their passes often coming from Ryan Zimmerman, who had five assists to go with his pair of tallies. Hunter Waddington, Jack Miller and Andrew Hodgens had one goal apiece, but Mustangs goalie Dan Cusick got 14 saves, five more than Warrior counter part Tim O’Connor.
Before all this, Westhill faced a damaging defeat when it visited Tully last Tuesday night, but it did enough to turn things around and force overtime, where Zimmerman finished off a tense 12-11 victory over the Black Knights.
Shut out in the first quarter as Tully took a 3-0 lead, the Warriors didn’t let it get out of hand. Instead, it pulled within one, 5-4, and then matched the Black Knights shot for shot before its defense took over, holding Tully to one goal in the fourth quarter.
Then, having tied it, 11-11, Westhill withstood several Tully chances to win it at the end of regulation, Tim O’Connor working his total to 11 saves. Then Zimmerman won it with 2:13 left in OT, netting his fifth goal of the night.
Rogers, with three goals, helped out as Matt McAnaney had a goal and two assists. Miller, Luke McAnaney and Owen Matukas had the other goals as defender Chase Gedney recorded an assist. Tully, in defeat, got three goals apiece from Jon Lippert and Nick Edinger, with Lippert adding a pair of assists.
Marcellus, meanwhile, chased an upset at Jamesville-DeWitt and put a lot of goals on the board, only to take an 18-13 defeat to the Red Rams because its defense could not slow down J-D’s top line of Griffin Cook, Grayson Burns and Ryan Archer.
The Rams steadily gained a 10-6 halftime advantage before Marcellus made a third-quarter surge, cutting its deficit in half to 13-11, but not quite able to catch up to the blistering pace the Rams set.
Marcellus got four-goal efforts from Hutchings and Van Order, plus three goals from Filtch. Donovan had the other goal and Shane Rohe got an assist.
On J-D’s side, Cook, piling up seven assists, fed it to Grayson Burns (five goals, two assists) and Ryan Archer (four goals, three assists) while also scoring twice himself. Charlie Digristina roared back to form with a three-goal hat trick as Rams goalie ylan Fleischmann made 10 saves.
While Westhill barely survived Tully and Marcellus lost to J-D, Jordan-Elbridge won last Monday, pounding Onondaga 21-7 in a game where it gradually pulled away, eventually outscoring the Tigers 18-6 over the course of the last three periods.
Colby Falcone and Sam Robles each scored six times, while Hunter Brunelle had three goals and three assists. Dale Wagner and Logan Schwarting both finished with two goals and three assists as Dylan Dunhan and Ethan Fraser got single goals. Lamatt Chisholm contributed an assist.
It was only J-E’s third win of the season, and now the Eagles got its shot at Tully Wednesday night, playing strong defense from start to finish, but unable to capitalize on it in a 7-4 defeat to the Black Knights.
J-E blanked Tully in the second quarter and gave up just one goal in the final period. But the strong starts by each half allowed the Black Knights to protect itself, and it blanked the Eagles in the fourth quarter with the game still in doubt.
Robles put in three of J-E’s four goals, and Falcone earned the other, with Dunham getting an assist. Nick Hallinan played a sensational game in the net, stopping 18 of the 25 shots he faced, but Tully still won as four players – Nick Edinger, Jon Lippert, Travis Biggs and Drew McNerney – had two goals apiece.
Still confident, though, the Eagles went to Fulton Saturday and pulled out a 15-14 victory over the Red Raiders, doing so with five goals from Robles and four goals from Wagner, to go with an assist. Falcone had three goals and two assists as Dunham scored twice, Schwarting and Hunter Brunelle earned two assists apiece.
