More than the usual amount of happiness and emotion poured out of West Genesee boys lacrosse players when the final horn sounded Wednesday night at Cicero-North Syracuse’s Bragman Stadium the Section III Class A championship was secured with a 12-10 victory over Fayetteville-Manlius.
Some of it had to do with securing a 34th and final title for retiring head coach Mike Messere and his long-time assistant, Bob Deegan, but more of it was the release of three years of pent-up frustration.
The Wildcats’ players, especially the seniors, had gone through painful defeats to F-M in the 2016 final and to Baldwinsville in the 2017 final on this same C-NS turf, watching their rivals celebrate landmark wins.
Now, it was WG’s players flipping gloves, sticks and helmets in the air after a tense, terrific title game where the Wildcats never played its best lacrosse until the fourth quarter, when it counted most.
“This means so much,” said senior attacker Jack Howes, who had three goals on his birthday. “We’ve overcome a lot this year. These guys just never quit.”
And there was every reason to feel discouraged as F-M, who lost twice to B’ville in the regular season before rallying to beat them in the May 24 semifinals, nearly pulled off the same feat against a Wildcats side that beat them 10-6 in April and 9-8 earlier this month.
Even as WG built a 4-2 lead in the first quarter, it was struggling in the face-off circle as the Hornets’ Zak VanValkenburgh was getting the best of the Wildcats’ Pat Stanistreet.
Soon enough, those extra F-M possessions began to wear on WG’s defense, who couldn’t stop Chris Lubrino as the Hornets forward netted his team’s first four goals to erase that early Wildcats lead.
By the third quarter, WG trailed 6-4, but with a series of key defensive stops it swung momentum in the Wildcats’ direction and went back in front with a 4-1 spurt to close the period.
Still, when VanValkenburgh took the fourth-quarter face-off and scored within seven seconds to tie it, 8-8, it provided WG with one more challenge – which it would meet thanks to strong individual efforts.
It started with Anthony Datellas running around the net and firing it past Ben Hammond with 9:21 to play. Less than two minutes later, Noah Sabatino found a gap on the right side, ran through it and earned his first goal of the night.
With Stanistreet finally beating VanValkenburgh in the face-off circle, WG kept getting the ball – and kept converting, Max Rosa making the same move that Sabatino did from the right side to score with 5:17 left to answer Mike Howe’s third goal a minute earlier.
Ryan Smith offered a final scoring touch with his hard shot into the net with 3:39 to play. Smith said that he and his fellow midfielders noticed that F-M’s defenders slid so that, when they did, “the floodgates opened.”
Lubrino did get a fifth goal with 2:58 left to cut the margin to two, but the Wildcats’ defense made one more crucial stop, and a sectional title was secured.
Happy as the Wildcats were, Smith said there was “still two weeks left”, which means going after the program’s 16th state title. WG returns to Bragman Stadium Saturday to face Section IV champion Ithaca in the Class A regional final.
