The boys lacrosse team smoothly beat the Carlmont Scots 8-1, following the senior night celebration on Tuesday night.
M-A secured the opening faceoff and got active on the offensive side of the ball. Taking it slow and steady, senior attacker Carey Wolf found junior attacker Will Torre, who busted by his defender. Torre banged in an open shot for the first score of the game, putting the Bears up early, 1-0, with 8:34 in the first quarter.
M-A won the faceoff again, and senior attacker Ben Skirboll got multiple quick shots off, but they landed wide. With the ball still in the Bears’ favor, Wolf got his first shot attempt on a catch-and-shoot and drilled it in, increasing M-A’s lead to 2-0 with 6:35 on the clock.
The Scots finally got their first touches, but quickly turned it over, and the Bears made them pay for the early mistakes. Senior goalkeeper Caden Kadivar got the offense moving, pushing the ball downfield to Torre to an open Skiboll to connect for a goal, bringing the score to 3-0 to end the first quarter.
Carlmont finally got something the offense rolling. After a foul on the Bears, the Scots gained control and were able to get their first shot attempt, scoring to chip away at M-A’s lead, 3-1.
But the Bears didn’t collapse one bit. Shortly after a Carlmont turnover, Wolf made the extra pass to senior attacker Matthew Sanford, who nailed it in the top of the goal to push M-A’s lead back up to three. Seconds later, Skirboll spun off his defender, jumped up, and sank in a shot in the bottom left of the goal, making it 5-1in favor of the Bears with 9:58 in the half.
M-A was pouring the goals all over the Scots. Torre controlled possession at the top of the box before swinging it over to Wolf, who discovered Skirboll open once again for a catch-and-shoot goal, increasing the lead to 6-1 with 7:36 left.
With 1:39 on the clock, Sanford found a lane and buried it into the back of the net for his second goal of the game, bringing the score to 7-1 in M-A’s favor.
Carlmont had the ball with time running down in the half, but junior midfielder Will Clark stood his ground, knocking the ball loose multiple times. The Scots couldn’t get past him as time expired, ending the half with the Bears ahead, 7-1.
Carlmont held most of the possession to start the third quarter, but never had a chance to get any possible shot off because of M-A’s rock-solid defense. Junior defender Teddy Honerkamp and senior defender Matthew Kwon held their ground, forcing the Scots to back out of any offensive movement.
However, the Bears found similar struggles on the offensive end, and after a shot from Wolf that was blocked, Carlmont beat M-A in transition. Kadivar was quick to halt this run with a sliding save, and he followed it up with two more stops to end the third quarter scoreless, maintaining the Bears’ 7-1 advantage.
The Scots were in desperate need of a connection to have any hopes of a comeback, and the Bears almost gave in. M-A made multiple possession errors with a crosscheck and two delays of the game, forcing them to call a timeout.
Out of the timeout, the Bears were able to regather themselves, playing smart and physical and making Carlmont’s offense want nothing apart from it. As opportunities in the middle defense opened up, the Scots took it back to the top of the box, slowing the momentum down.
With time running down, senior attackers Drew Lemberger and Cole Johnstone were in control of the offense, finding openings in the defense. With 47 seconds remaining in the game, Lemberger got an opening and bounced the shot off the goalkeeper and into the net, closing out the game with an 8-1 victory for M-A.
“It’s always nice to win the final game of the regular season to go into the playoffs with a victory,” Wolf said.
“We started off hot, but slowed down towards the end. Defense stayed strong the entire time, which always makes my job a bit easier,” Kadivar said.
The Bears will find out who they’ll play in CCS on Sunday.
