The boys lacrosse team rolled past the Mountain View Spartans 11-3 in dominant fashion on Thursday night.
The game began with junior midfielder Sam Huddleston winning the faceoff to gain possession for the Bears. M-A called a timeout just a minute in, and while solid communication set the Bears up for success, they failed to convert any shots on goal due to passing errors.
After remaining in enemy territory for a few minutes, senior attacker Ben Skirboll sank a long-distance shot to the lower corner of the net, putting M-A on the board first, 1-0. Building off this, lockdown defense by junior defender Will Clark forced numerous Spartan turnovers, and the rest of the quarter went by quietly, with the Bears ending up 1-0.
The second quarter started with numerous turnovers from both teams due to dropped passes. The Bears remained dominant on offense with shots fired by Skirboll and junior midfielder Zachary Sokol. Crucial saves by senior goalkeeper Caden Kadivar prevented the Spartans from gaining momentum, and Sokol capitalized on this by scoring a goal with a powerful mid-range shot to give M-A a 2-0 lead.
The Bears’ defense remained suffocating, with junior defender Marco Palacios and freshman defender Jack Clark forcing turnovers and dropped balls. Even so, Mountain View eventually made their way through and scored, ending the first half with M-A holding a 2-1 advantage.
M-A struggled at the beginning of the third quarter due to sloppy passes and poor communication. However, these struggles were short-lived, as W. Clark launched an excellent pass to Skirboll, who effortlessly scored to raise the tally to 3-1. Skirboll remained hot on offense, dodging multiple defenders and firing off a bounce shot to further increase the Bears’ 4-1 lead.
W. Clark continued to be authoritative on the field, scoring with a precise shot to the lower right corner of the goal. This was immediately followed by an excellent maneuver from Huddleston, who continued the offensive reign and built on the Bears’ a 6-1 advantage. After two more impressive goals, M-A walked out of the third quarter up 8-1.
“I think the bench really started to turn it around. When we were kind of yelling, when they were on offense in the third quarter, and then we were getting turnovers, everyone was getting hype, and it was just a momentum shift that changed the game,” Sokol said.
To kick off the fourth quarter, the Spartans sneaked past M-A defenders and converted on a shot, cutting the lead to 8-2. Less than a minute in, freshman defender Dylan Kryger brought the crowd to their feet with a goal, drilling the left pole and putting the Bears up 9-2. Refusing to stay too far behind, Mountain View bounced back by capitalizing on a lack of communication on defense, which enabled them to score and decrease their deficit to 9-3.
Huddleston swiftly deafened the Spartans’ momentum with a deep-range goal from upfield to set the score at 10-3. Huddleston followed this up shortly after with a bounce shot to the right side of the goal, and the Bears emerged victorious at the end of the fourth quarter, 11-3.
“We started off really slow and the whole offense was just moving really slow. But once we kind of got it together in the second half, we found some open looks and we put the game away,” senior attacker Mathew Stanford said.
M-A will play the La Jolla Vikings away on Thursday at 7:30 p.m.
