Starting in 2009, the Jamesville-DeWitt boys lacrosse team took hold of the Section III Class B championships, and no one else has grabbed it since.
The streak now stands at eight consecutive sectional titles, the latest of them earned Saturday night at the Carrier Dome with a first-half scoring blitz that left no. 2 seed Auburn far behind as the Red Rams prevailed 15-7.
This sectional final match-up held lots of promise. J-D had its long and sterling record, along with a no. 4 state ranking, and had breezed through early-round sectional games against Fulton (22-2) and New Hartford (18-5).
Auburn, no. 12 in the state rankings, had played in the CNY Counties League during the spring and shared the regular-season title with eventual Class A sectional finalist Baldwinsville. It had plenty of skill on hand, but had struggled to get past Carthage 14-11 in its semifinal game two nights earlier.
Any concerns that Rams fans may have felt about the final started to dissipate within a decisive 55-second span late in the first quarter.
Trailing 1-0 after Jake Morin put the Maroons on the board, J-D, who had gone through an uneven start, got on the board at the 8:05 mark with Griffin Cook’s goal.
Then, at the 8:50 mark, Ryan Archer slipped a low shot past Auburn goalie Nikoli Biljanoski. The Rams won the ensuing face-off and, just 10 seconds later, it was 3-1 thanks to Rosario Digristina’s goal.
Though the Maroons closed the gap to 4-2 by the end of the period, J-D’s vaunted attack was now in rhythm, and it spent most of the second period in Auburn’s end, using its vast skill to add to its margin.
Grayson Burns started it, getting a goal at the 56-second mark. Archer and Digristina both found the net again, Andrew Barclay scored twice and then, to cap it off, Cook netted back-to-back goals in the last 31 seconds of the half.
So instead of a close, tense battle, the Rams led the Maroons 11-3 at the break, and now the primary challenge involved finding out what the winning margin would be and, more importantly, keeping everyone injury-free for the bigger challenges ahead.
J-D didn’t let up at all, keeping Auburn off the board for more than 12 minutes. Burns and Jacob Risavi tacked on goals to extend the margin to double digits at one point.
Even when the Maroons broke its drought with back-to-back goals late in the third quarter, Burns countered with a goal seven seconds later, symbolic of how J-D toyed with Auburn’s defense throughout the night. Tyler McKee contributed a fast-break goal in the game’s final minutes.
For the night, Archer, Cook and Burns each had three-goal hat tricks, Archer adding three assists. Sam Mueller, Charlie Digristina, Jack Mulvilhill and Jai Benson each contributed assists as Dylan Fleischmann recorded six saves.
Now it’s back to the state tournament for J-D, pursuing its first state championship since 2011. In Wednesday night’s regional opener, the Red Rams face Massena (Section X), looking to advance to Saturday’s regional final at Vestal against Section IV champion Horseheads.
