Buckley vs. Allen-Stevenson

On a beautiful, sunny afternoon, in front of a vociferous crowd of blue and white, the Buckley Varsity Lacrosse team once again displayed their penchant for drama, earning a come-from-behind victory over league rival Allen-Stevenson.

Three suspect quarters of lacrosse yielded few highlights, other than Coach McCartney's varied, colorful attempts to inspire the team out of their slump. The Blue Demons offense struggled to move the ball through Allen-Stevenson's man-to-man defensive scheme, and the defense, while holding the opposition to only two goals, lacked the aggression necessary to disrupt possession and force turnovers. Particularly troubling to the coaches, Buckley failed to pick up ground balls and was losing 50-50 battles all across the field.

After the third-quarter break, during which the team threw around words like "fortunate," "lucky" and "zombies," Buckley (down 2-0 at the time) attempted to prove the Goals-Come-In-Bunches rule and mount another fourth-quarter comeback. Things started well for the Blue Demons, when William Truesdell rifled a top-shelf shot past the A-S goalie, off assists from Austin Sanders and Addison Davenport. Minutes later, B.J. Lawson finished a tough play on the crease off a feed from Griffin Spolansky to tie the game at 2-2. With less than three minutes on the clock, Spolansky found Brendan Powell moving in from the right corner of the box, and Powell took two steps to the cage and bounced the ball past the keeper to give Buckley a 3-2 lead.

The drama didn't end there, however, as a dubious "unnecessary roughness" call sent Davenport to the penalty box and gave Allen-Stevenson a one minute advantage to close the game. But the Buckley defense held strong, and MVP goalie Oliver Senbahar stopped two point-blank shots to save the game and give the Blue Demons a remarkable comeback win.

Next up for Buckley is St. Bernard's this Tuesday, when the team will attempt once again to play FOUR quarters of lacrosse and upset their league rival.