Coming off a disappointing loss earlier in the week, the Bears lacrosse team took the field against a talented opponent in Marist last Friday night, March 16th.
The fireworks began early in the second half. In what is easily one of the great highlights so far this year, Goalie Winsness achieved every goalie's dream by taking the ball up the field into the offensive zone. Upon seeing no defender move up to defend him, Cole accelerated to the goal and fired a fantastic low 'no doubter' goal giving the Bears a 7-2 lead! Bears fans and players erupted in jubilation.
Sophomore Evan Finelli has been strong at face off all year and this game was more of the same. Coming off the Winsness goal, Finelli pounced on the face off and tore down the field delivering the ball to fellow sophomore, Chase DuMond, who delivered a pretty cross field pass to Austin Darnell for a sweet left hand goal and a commanding 8-2 lead.
A key ingredient to successful face-off play includes the success of the wing players. Wing play was consistently good all night led by Sr. Co-Captain, Nick Ganem, Sr. Hunter Penman and strong ground ball play by Sophomore, Matthew Schnetzka, who successfully handled multiple loose ground balls. Marist made a run cutting the lead to 8-5, only to be thwarted by the effective play of the Sr. Attack players—Meyerholt and Darnell, who added goals and a 10-5 cushion. On the following face-off, Finelli raced up the field after a perfectly executed face off win and delivered a beautiful right hand 'RIP' into the net leading to more jubilation on the Bears sideline and his first goal of the season.
Not to be outdone by the earlier highlights, midway through the fourth quarter, Defensemen Jack Lech sped up the field dodging multiple defenders along the way and delivering a masterful shot into the net for a rare 'long stick' goal. Lech's goal, along with sweet shots into the net by Sr. Hunter Penman and Sophomore Bryson Hawkins, whose textbook dodge led to the final point in what served as the exclamation on a great night for the entire Boys Varsity team.
This 14-8 win was the Senior class's first over Marist—-a solid team win as the Bears moved to 4-5 on the season.
