The Bears varsity lacrosse team hosted rival Alpharetta last Tuesday night, March 20 in a key area battle.
Coming off its best performance off the season the prior week, the Bears had to shake off early rust before delivering a strong overall outing and a dominant win against the Raiders. After falling behind early 2-0, Sr. Jake Meyerholt put the Bears on the board midway through the first quarter. The dynamic attackman, Meyerholt, added his second goal early in the 2nd quarter to keep the Bears within striking distance down 3-2 and then tied the game with his first half hat trick. Credit the defense for making each possession miserable for the Raiders. Though possession time was largely even for the game, the Bears ability to snare ground balls over the course of the game was impressive.
Co-Captain, Nick Ganem, led the defensive players with five ground balls followed by Jack Lech with four. Defensive clears remained a strong suit for the team as the Bears converted over 86% of clears for the night. Among the highlights for the game, the team had scores from many sources. Sophomore Middie, Justus Garvin, delivered his first goal of the season on a nice dodge and shoot score assisted by fellow sophomore, Reese Pieroni. The Bears exploited the Raiders throughout the evening during man up situations. For the game, Cambridge had five man up opportunities and converted goals on four of those five. Two goals by Sr. Austin Darnell helped pad the lead at halftime to 7-4.
The offensive momentum continued past halftime as the Bears extended their 3rd quarter lead to 9-5 on Sophomore, Zach Shiffman's second goal of the game. Reese Pieroni added a man up goal later in the quarter to go with his two assists for the game while padding the Bears lead to 11-5. Any attempt to draw closer by the Raiders was often thwarted by the defense, led by goalie Cole Winsness, or met with continued fire power by the offense.
For the game, the team caused 11 turnovers by its opponents which led to more scoring opportunities. During the fourth quarter, after Shiffman's third goal, Junior Attackman Ryan Richardson lit up the net with a key goal pushing the lead to eight points. In a key left hand stroke, reserve sophomore Attacker, Alex Prince delivered a solid shot leading to a one of the final blows on the night.
The final score of 15-9 brings the Bear's area record to 3-1 for the season and sets up a key match against Allatoona in their next game, Friday, March 23rd.
Go Bears!
