Local stars lead way in senior sendoffs

Jenner, Kelly, Farrare stand out in national all-star event to help South earn victories

Local high school all-stars helped seal victories at the 13th annual Under Armour All-America Lacrosse, leading an early scoring run for the boys and setting up the game-winning goal for the girls.

Before an announced 4,129 on Saturday night at Johns Hopkins’ Homewood Field, the boys South team sparked another high-scoring contest en route to a 22-15 victory. Just a few hours earlier in the girls’ game, McDonogh graduate Maddie Jenner’s last draw control led to Erin Bakes’ game-winning overtime goal as the South defeated the North, 10-9.

The boys South team, which included five local players, scored the first four goals and led 7-1 after one quarter, tying a record for most goals in a quarter.

“We had a good start,” said Calvert Hall’s Jacob Kelly, whose team had13 goal scorers. “Playing with Nicky Solomon and Joey Epstein, that was the starting lineup and it was fun. They’re obviously two really, really

good players and I’m playing with Nicky in the future [at North Carolina], so it was fun to kind of click out there on the field. It just looked normal and just smooth.”

Kelly and McDonogh’s BJ Farrare each had a goal and an assist in the early run and each added another assist later. Solomon, from Georgia, was named the game’s Most Valuable Player after scoring four goals, including two in the opening quarter.

“We all decided let’s come out hot, play as hard as we could, see what we could get done in the first few minutes of the game and it worked out. We got up quick,” Farrare said.

McDonogh’s Jack Simmons and Boys’ Latin’s Matt Brandau finished with two goals each. St. Mary’s goalie Aleric Fyock played the second half and made seven saves.

The South ran its lead to 12-2 on Simmons’ goal from Kyle Long with 8:24 left in the first half. The North then put together its biggest run of the game with five straight goals before Simmons added a goal to end the half with a 13-7 South lead.

The North never again got closer than within five goals.

To Fararre, the high-scoring game, which featured 129 shots between the teams, was no surprise when you look at the rosters.

“I would say that’s because there’s no defensive middies,” Farrare, the only longstick midfielder on the South team, said with a smile. “Everyone plays offense so none of the mids want to play defense.”

Kelly, whose Cardinals won their second straight Maryland Interscholastic Athletic Association A Conference championship in May, said he had a great time playing with the other MIAA players.

“It’s awesome. They’re all great players,” Kelly said. “I wish I could have them on my team all four years at Calvert Hall. BJ’s an absolute beast. Matt, Simmons, all those guys, they’re awesome, so it’s a lot of fun.”

Jenner won 220 draw controls this spring for McDonogh and Saturday night, she polished off her high school lacrosse career with another critical possession.

Jenner, a 6-foot-2 midfielder, directed the ball and snatched it out of the air as she has so many times during a McDonogh career that included 567 draw controls in the past three years.

“It was cool to finish it with a clean draw,” said Jenner, who ran down field and passed the ball to Bakes on the left side of the goal where she skimmed it low into the goal just 12 seconds into overtime.

“She was just coming down the field, so I just lofted it up to her and then that was a really gutsy shot, to take that OT finisher. That was a cool shot.”

Bakes, from Miami, earned the Most Valuable Player award after netting her second goal of the game, but said she shared it with Jenner and all of her South teammates.

“Maddie’s relentless [on the draw]. She’s a monster, unstoppable, so that just shows how much this game was a team effort. This trophy could be split 22 ways between all of us. All of these girls are amazing players and Maddie contributed so much. She had so many draw controls. She’s unstoppable for sure.”

Bakes said said she just saw on opening and “muscled it in the five hole.”

Early in the game, the South’s defense was almost impenetrable, allowing just two goals in the first half, a record for the game. The previous record was three.

Led by goalie Rachel Hall, from Texas, with six saves, the stingy play early helped this become the lowest scoring game in the history of the girls All-America game. The previous low was 21 goals in 2009.

The South also had stellar performances from defenders Gabi Hall (Bel Air), Sarah Cooper (Notre Dame Prep) and Kennedy Lynch (Garrison Forest) as well as midfielders Jenner, Anna Callahan (Glenelg) and Tayler Warehime (Manchester Valley).

Cooper, who helped Notre Dame Prep to the Interscholastic Athletic Association of Maryland A Conference championship in May, said it can take a while for defenders to mesh.

“It was hard to get to know each other,” Cooper said. “We had two practices yesterday. We really started to mesh. We only had four defenders on our team, so it was really easy, because it was just going to be the four of us playing together so we knew we had to step up and we wanted to play a little safer just in case and have early slides which helped us on the eight [meters].

The South ran up a 5-0 lead and took a 6-2 advantage into halftime, but the North regrouped and steadily climbed back into the game. The North never led but pulled within one with a 4-1 run to cut the lead to 7-6 with 11:45 left.

Jillian Wilson (Gerstell) scored with 5:29 left to give the South a 9-7 lead, but the North answered with back-to-back goals from Caitlynn Mossman (NDP) and Meaghan Tyrell to tie it with 57 seconds left.

Julia Hoffman (McDonogh) and Wilson scored two goals each for the South team, led by three goals from Charlie Rudy, from Novato, Calif. Alex Marino (Bryn Mawr) had two assists. For the North, Notre Dame Prep’s Hannah Mardiney and Mossman each scored one goal.

The South jumped out to a 5-0 lead in the first 18 minutes thanks to its domination of the draw. Jenner won the first two on ground balls and Bel Air’s Elizabeth Hillman won one.

Rudy scored the first goal just over a minute into the game and then fed Wilson for a 2-0 South lead about seven minutes into the game.

Hoffman boosted the lead to 3-0 and Rudy and Madison Mote also added goals to extend the lead to 5-0 with 11:26 left in the half. The North got one back on Isabelle Scane’s goal before Hoffman scored her second goal for a 6-1 lead. Shonly Wallace added a goal for the North with 36 seconds left.

Most of the 15 local girls in the game, including St. Paul’s Darby Welsh, played on the South team, but three — Mardiney, Mossman and Shay Clevenger (Marriotts Ridge) — played for the North.

That put Cooper in the interesting position of playing against her high school teammates, Mardiney and Mossman.

“It was fun. All three of us love playing against each other because we know we get better,” Cooper said. “School lacrosse was so fun this year. There’s always competition, so it was great to play against them in this last game.”