Lakers take advantage
3rd-quarter run of 4 extra-man goals sends Boys’ Latin past Admirals
Momentum can swiftly turn in lacrosse with an eye-popping goal, an incredible save and even a tough ground ball.
At Boys’ Latin on Tuesday, the host No. 2 Lakers made the most of a Severn penalty to take hold of their Maryland Interscholastic Athletic Association A Conference opener.
After a two-minute, nonreleasable penalty on the Admirals, the Lakers scored four extra-man goals and added a fifth seconds later in the pivotal third quarter, turning a tie game into a comfortable16-11 win.
Freshman attackman Brendan Grimes made an impressive MIAA A league play debut, scoring five second-half goals — including three in the extra-man opportunity — and adding an assist. The Lakers, who improved to 7-3, also got a two-goal, four-assist effort from junior attackman Matt Brandau with his brother, Chris, finishing with 11 saves.
The Admirals (9-3) had scored four straight goals to take a 7-6 lead, their first, with 5:18 to play in the third quarter when the game changed.
Boys’ Latin senior attackman and captain Luke Shilling tied the game less than a minute later and was hit hard as he continued cutting across the goal with an illegal check called on an Admirals defenseman. The Lakers made the visitors pay with key faceoff wins, followed by Grimes and company precisely executing on the man-advantage. Shilling’s tying goal was the start of seven straight for the Lakers as they took a 13-7 lead into the fourth quarter.
“We scored the first goal and then everyone was going crazy and then we just got on a roll and scored like five more. So we were really rolling,” Grimes said. “It was really exciting. I was a little nervous coming into it, but I knew I was going to be fine and just went out there and played.”
With the game tightly contested throughout the first half, the Lakers got consecutive goals from long-stick midfielder Michael Ubriaco13 seconds apart to take a 6-3 lead with 2:13 left in the second quarter.
But the Admirals got a goal from Joel Mandish (two goals, one assist) with 44 seconds left and opened fast in the third quarter with goals from Ben Bedard (four goals, one assist) and Michael Lamon (two goals, two assists) to tie the game at 6 just two minutes into play. Up a man a little later, Charlie Olmert took a feed from Mandish to give the Admirals their first lead at 7-6 with 5:18 to play. The Lakers stormed back. “Our extra-man crushed it,” Matt Brandau said. “Coach [Brian Farrell] talked about handling their runs and they had a