Buckley vs. St. Bernard's
The Buckley Varsity Lacrosse team finished up a brutal stretch of league games this afternoon when they hosted St. Bernard's and their vaunted attack.
In a marked departure from last week's comatose performance against Allen-Stevenson, the Blue Demons took the field today with the focus, grit and grace necessary to upset their rival. They battled for every loose ball and worked tirelessly at both ends of the field, holding even on possession percentage with a St. Bernard's team that is undefeated in league play. The only thing missing from the first half was goals; Buckley struggled to find open shots, and, when they did, the opposition's talented keeper kept everything out of the net.
Off goals given up mostly in transition, the Blue Demons found themselves down 3-0 in the third quarter. Luckily (though maybe unfortunately), the team has become well-versed in facing late-game deficits, and this rapidly-maturing group of young men didn't panic, trusting that the goals would come. And indeed they did, when Griffin Spolansky found a wide-open Addison Davenport out of the corner of his eye, who powered one past St. Bernard's star goalie. Heading into the fourth quarter, Davenport, with a renewed confidence in his shooting ability, streaked/barreled/blasted his way through the opposition's defense and put home another, pulling Buckley to within one.
Unfortunately for the Blue Demons, their aggressive approach left the defense stranded in transition once again, and St. Bernard's increased their lead to 4-2 with less than four minutes to play. At this point, the slightly subdued team had every reason to give up; but one eighth-grader refused, and the team's energy was immediately restored when Brendan Powell converted his patented crow-step bounce-shot to make the score 4-3. With less than two on the clock, St. Bernard's was content to control possession, forcing Buckley to extend their defense in the hope of causing a turnover. But the opposition was expecting such a ploy and managed to sneak the ball to their crafty, yellow-gloved attackman on the crease, who scored side-arm to put Buckley down two again.
This time it was the blue and white crowd who kept the team's belief intact. Behind boisterous cheers from the Varsity Track team and with the headmaster in attendance, Davenport won a crucial face-off and got the ball to Spolansky, who found B.J. Lawson coming around the cage. Lawson, rising to the coach's challenge, put the ball in his left hand and outmuscled a quite-muscley St. Bernard's defender to make the score 5-4 with 30 seconds to play. Following another face-off win, the Blue Demons had possession with a chance to tie but could not convert and bowed to the heartbreak of their comeback denied.
Oliver Senbahar played another solid game in net, recording three saves and converting several crucial clears. Also of note, rookie wing defenders Nicholas Anderson and George Coumantaros played their best game to date, sliding quickly and limiting the opposition to very few settled offensive opportunities.
With this difficult league stretch behind them (during which they went 2-1, with all one-goal games!), the Varsity Lacrosse team heads upstate to Tuxedo Park on Thursday to admire nature, get some sun...and play a sure-to-be-entertaining game of lacrosse.
