By one-goal margins, championship dreams for the Marcellus and Westhill boys lacrosse teams both got put away on their respective home fields in overtime in Tuesday’s Section III Class C quarterfinals.
First, the no. 3 seed Warriors gave up a five-goal halftime lead in a 12-11 defeat to no. 6 seed LaFayette during the afternoon. Then, in the evening, the no. 2 seed Mustangs staged its own comeback to force OT against no. 7 seed Homer, but also lost by an 11-10 margin.
Westhill was facing the same LaFayette team it routed 16-5 on March 29. That was part of a 1-6 start for the Lancers, who turned it around by winning eight of its nine regular-season games, though it looked for a long while like the playoff rematch with the Warriors would have the same ending.
Getting whatever it wanted against a porous LaFayette defense, Westhill had two different 3-0 runs during the first half, capped when Matt McAnaney, off a feed from Ryan Zimmerman, scored with 2.1 seconds left in the second quarter.
This gave the Warriors a 10-5 halftime edge. By this point, Zimmerman had racked up six assists to go with a lone goal as Casey Rogers scored three times, with Luke McAnaney and Jack Miller each getting two goals.
But then LaFayette switched goalies, inserting sophomore Bert White in place of senior Nate Nicholas, and White made a series of stops early in the third quarter, just as the Lancers began to find cracks in Westhill’s defenses.
Twice, Ryan Agedal scored as part of a 5-0 LaFayette push that Devon Buckshot capped by tying it, 10-10, late in the period. Westhill did not get on the board again until Zimmerman netted his second goal with 10:56 left, fed off a clear by defender Jack Gilmartin.
White stopped everything else, though, and had six saves overall. Tim O’Connor made some big stops, too, but couldn’t keep Percy Booth from finding the net with 2:29 to play in regulation that tied it again, 11-11.
Both teams missed chances to win it in the last minute, but LaFayette claimed the all-important OT face-off and, two minutes later, Ian Evans, situated behind the net, made a strong move and passed it to Booth, who put the winning shot past O’Connor. Booth finished the night with four goals and three assists.
Marcellus knew about the Westhill-LaFayette outcome by the time it took the field against Homer. Like the Warriors, the Mustangs beat its playoff opponent in the regular season, topping the Trojans 13-10 on April 18, but it would also see the second encounter, with the higher stakes, turn out different.
Where it was different was that Homer led most of the way, steadily accumulating that margin in the first half and going to the break up 5-3. Even as Marcellus quickened the pace in the third quarter, it could not make up any ground, and still trailed, 10-7, with one period left.
Yet as it had done other times this season, the Mustangs clamped down in the fourth quarter on the defensive side, Dan Cusick running his total to 20 saves, while an all-out attack produced three straight goals and a 10-10 deadlock at the end of regulation.
Homer had the last goal, though, and the most important one, finishing off an effort where Vincent Basile got four goals and Dante Yacavone added three goals.
Ross Filtch paced the Mustangs, finding the net three times. Riley Donovan and Matt Reich had two goals apiece, while Matt Hutchings piled up four assists to go with his lone goal. Kieran Tierney and Sam Rice also had goals as assists went to Gabe Van Order and Shane Rohe.
Had they won, Marcellus and Westhill would have faced each other in the sectional semifinals. Instead, LaFayette and Homer would meet, and the Mustangs and Warriors could only watch and wonder where it went wrong.
