Landon Lacrosse 9 StA 5

The DC Bulldogs and the Bears met on rainy and windy Bordley Stadium at Triplett Field for a critical IAC match. StA’s roster was led by 5 seniors, three of whom have big time commitments. Thier IL rating is (was?) greater than the Bears’. The visiting FOGO is considered one of the best in the DMV and beyond. Their expectations were to beat their archrivals despite eight of their wins were over teams without a winning record.  

The home crowd¹ expressed their appreciation for the eight members of the Class of 2023 (Athur Smink, Will Cohen, Phillip Strabo, Anthony Savoy, Andrew Atkins, Quinn Coughlin, Will Abramson, and Nico Schermer). It is not uncommon for the emotions of Senior Night to effect the graduating players’ game. Not Today!!!  

The adverse conditions caused both teams’ sticks to be wet and thus bad passes and inaccurate shots. The honor of the Bears’ 1st goal of the game began with a CT, GB, clear, a couple of dekes through the Bulldogs D and a long pole goal @2:26 by NICO SCHERMER. A second goal was registered by SEAN MURRAY @ 0:45 on a nifty dodge from X.

StA got its initial goal on an unsettled play when a bad Bear clear led to a goal at 10:32. Juxtaposed to that comment, it must be noted that the Landon D was lockdown on the Bulldogs set offense (season goal average 8.1)and stopped the staple of StA’s scoring—fast breaks, frequently generated by their FOGO’s dominance. The 2nd Q did not allow that to happen at midfield X- HAYDEN GOOZH and TALAR SMITH collectively won 5 of 6 battles. 

The Bear O showed its balance with three goals in this period. The first–great feed from TROY ULISNEY to ANTHONY SAVOY’S GOAL @ 8:17. A broken clear allowed the visitors to score at 6:47. In the ensuing faceoff, F/O win in which DAVIS OWENS scooped up the ball, drove to the StA goal, showed some expert stick moves past the opponents to score. To bring the team to halftime with momentum, ANTHONY PANETTI connected with CADEN SOUTHWITH for the +2 goal @1:00. Coach McGettigan’s time out at 1:05 probably was the inspiration for goal #5.  

There was a penalty called just before halftime. One would expect that the team with the touted FOGO would try to use the remainder of Q2 to try to get closer. No, the assurance of getting the call back was low enough to have the visitors lose some of their penalty seconds and start Q3 with 0:40 on their EMO clock. 

The Bulldogs recorded their first settled goal at 11:30 of Q3, albeit on an EMO opportunity (curiously, StA went 0-6 in EMOs during the remainder of the contest [per MadLax]). The narrowing of the margin was not sustained, for the Bears O reversed whatever StA impetus. First, ANTHONY P got the inertia moving toward the home team by passing to TROY @5:39. Soon, the home advantage upped to +4 on an unassisted goal @ 4:06 by talented soph DEVIN STEWART. High-scoring LSM DAVIS beat the StA goalie again @??? (NOT ANNOUNCED). A last second broken clear facilitated StA’s 4th goal. 

The last 12:00 started with a visitor’s goal at 9:20. The game began with a NICO goal and the last tally was his, too @???.

Save statistics when the television is not a medium to see the Goalie saves. Rough estimate—ZACH ABRAMSON 11

Bear long poles scored 4 of the team’s 9 total!!!

FINAL SCORE BEARS 9 BULLDOGS 5

Last IAC regular season game at EHS (13-3; 2-2 IAC) 5/2 away