Boys’ Latin lacrosse rallies past St. Paul’s, 13-12
On the regular season’s final day, No. 1 Boys’ Latin lacrosse scored the first five goals at rival St. Paul’s and seemed poised to comfortably claim the top seed in the Maryland Interscholastic Athletic Association A Conference playoffs.
Instead, the defending league champion Lakers had to find a different way to win, one that might serve a greater purpose in the coming days.
Stuck on nine goals while the No. 5 Crusaders surged ahead in front of their big home crowd, Boys’ Latin rallied with three unanswered goals before turning to a reliable source in overtime. With 2:03 left in the extra session, senior star Dom Pietramala circled around the cage to find space on the right side before ripping a shot that gave the Lakers a 13-12 victory.
In the exceptionally balanced MIAA, Boys’ Latin (13-3) proved steadiest, finishing with an 8-2 mark to claim first place and an opening-round bye in the playoffs. St. Paul’s, which needed a win for the sixth and final playoff spot, finishes 11-6 overall and 5-5 in conference play.
The Lakers couldn’t have asked for a better gut-check as they look to bring home a second straight league title.
“This is huge for us,” said Pietramala, who finished with three goals and two assists. “It shows us that everybody is beatable, and that includes us, and it shows us that we need to keep working hard. It’s outcomes like this that keeps the drive going, keeps us wanting to keep fighting.”
So after watching a 5-0 lead turn into a 12-9 deficit with 7:27 left in the fourth quarter, how did the Lakers respond in the game’s biggest moments?
With a measure of calm.
Pietramala ended the Lakers’ 14-plus minute scoring drought — St. Paul’s went from being down 9-7 to being up 12-9 — to start the comeback. He then dished out two assists, first finding Nicky Brown with 5:06 to play and then Brayden Garland with 4:11 to go to tie the game at 12.
Both teams had a chance to win it at the end of regulation, but neither side was able to find the net with Boys’ Latin goalie Cardin Stoller (10 saves) making a key stop.
In overtime, St. Paul’s faceoff specialist Daniel Davis — solid throughout and dominant in the third quarter — gave the Crusaders the first chance to claim the win, but Luke Bair’s shot with 3:11 left went wide.
After Boys’ Latin coach Brian Farrell called timeout, the order was simple: “Give the ball to [Pietramala].”
“In the beginning, [Pietramala] didn’t shoot particularly well, but that’s him. He’s like, ‘Hey, I’m going to keep shooting.’ That’s what great players do,” Farrell said. “They want the ball at the end of the day, and that’s what we saw out there today.”
For the Lakers, Spencer Ford (three goals, one assist), Brown (two goals, two assists), Garland (two goals) and Hopper Zappitello (three assists) all did their share to help bring home the win, with Thomas Moxley winning some key faceoffs.
Filled with emotion on their senior day, St. Paul’s came out sluggish but showed character against the league’s first-place team. The Crusaders dominated the third quarter with faceoff specialist Davis regularly getting them the ball and the attack proving efficient to turn an 8-6 deficit into a 12-9 lead going into the fourth. Senior captain Jake Bair finished with three goals while Brody Atkinson and freshman Jack Iannantuono each contributed two goals and one assist.
Boys’ Latin advances to the semifinal round set for Tuesday at Navy-Marine Corps
Memorial Stadium in Annapolis. The quarterfinal round — featuring teams seeded Nos. 3 to 6 — will open Friday with a pairing yet to be determined.
Archbishop Spalding 12, Mount Saint Joseph 5: Race Ripley notched four goals and three assists while Mikey Weisshaar netted three goals and two assists to led the Cavaliers to victory. Jack Newell added a goal, as did Auggie D’Ambrosi and Mason Klessinger. Both Nick Gutierrez and Jameson Coffman had assists.
Girls lacrosse
Glenelg Country 17, Bryn Mawr 5: Senior attacker Maggie Weisman intercepted Bryn Mawr’s clearing attempt, sprinting downfield as the Mawrtians scrambled, unsuccessfully, to get back defensively.
Weisman utilized a stick fake, burying the lefty shot past goalie JJ Suriano, her fourth goal of the day. That sequence epitomized the Dragons’ offensive speed and pressure defense, cruising to a 17-5 victory over Bryn Mawr and a berth in the IAAM A Conference championship. Hosting the semifinal for the first time in several years, the Dragons avenged past semifinal losses with a dominant victory.
“This is kind of a monkey off our back,” Glenelg Country coach Paige Walton said. “We’ve made it to the semis three or four times now. We hosted here before the COVID shutdown in 2019. Last year at St. Paul’s we didn’t get it done, we had a lead and lost. It was a monkey off our back.
“Being able to be here and not having to travel, we’ve learned from those experiences. This team learned to keep the foot on the gas until the end of the game. It was like, ‘Let’s just keep it going, keep it going, no let down.’ That’s something we’ve stressed all season. When you get into these playoff games, it’s win or go home, and we didn’t want to go home. We’ve been sent home before, and we didn’t like it.”
Playing with that heightened sense of urgency, the Dragons dominated the opening 25 minutes building an 11-2 lead. Glenelg Country scored the opening three goals of the game, setting the tone early with terrific ball movement as Jaclyn Marszal, Weisman and Regan Byrne scored. After Hannah Johnson answered for Bryn Mawr, the Dragons responded with four consecutive goals.
Leading by nine at the half, the Dragons
didn’t let up, scoring the second half ’s first three goals. Byrne scored her fourth of a team-high six goals 28 seconds in. Her goal came off a feed from Marszal, who excelled as a facilitator with a team-high four assists, also chipping in two goals.
— Jacob Steinberg
Softball
Catonsville 7, Carver A&T 3: Catonsville senior Maggie Kreis went 3-for-4 with two doubles and three RBIs, and she pitched a complete game with 11 strikeouts as the No. 9 Comets defeated No. 6 Carver A&T, 7-3, in the Baltimore County championship game at CCBC-Catonsville.
The teams split during the regular season with Catonsville winning 2-1 on April 19 and Carver blanking the Comets, 6-0, on April 28.
Tuesday, the Comets (13-2) built a 7-0 lead in the first four innings and Carver (9-2) rallied late with three runs in the final two innings.
Kreis allowed only one hit in the first five innings, twice striking out the side.
“She was pitching really, really good today,” Catonsville senior catcher Caelyn Voss said. “Her curve was working really good, a lot of people were going for the rise and it worked out a lot with that and just the plain fastball.”
Catonsville coach Paul Harris was even more impressed.
“She was lights out, absolutely amazing,” he said. “I’ve said it from the beginning of the season when Maggie is on her stuff, she is a very, very tough pitcher to beat and she was on her stuff today. You could hear it hitting the glove, it was just lightning. She had the Carver offense off-balanced for the whole game.”
— Craig Clary
Chesapeake-AA 6, South River 0: There haven’t been many head softball coaches over the past three decades at Chesapeake High, but Brittany Owen is already forging her own mark in the program’s proud lineage.
Owen led the Cougars to a 17-1 regular-season record in her first year at the helm, and on Tuesday added an Anne Arundel County championship to their ever-growing list of successes.
Alana Watts came a triple shy of hitting for the cycle in leading Chesapeake to a 6-0 victory over South River at Bachman Sports Complex.
Watts smacked a solo home run to go along with a double and two singles. She scored what would be the only run the Cougars would need in the first inning by delivering a leadoff single, stealing second then scoring on Ali Pollack’s base hit. That jump-started a three-run first frame.
Watts delivered her solo shot in the bottom of the second, then added a run-scoring double in the fourth and came around to score when Sam Larkin reached on an error. The senior finished the perfect 4-for-4 night with a single in the bottom of the sixth.
“To go out there and have my team’s back was a pretty good feeling. We’re all just working for one thing,” Watts said. “Year over year, we’ve all improved, so when we came back to this field, we were just better than we were last year. We’re trying to do this a game at a time, so the next game is what we are going for.”
Kendall Thomas was a stalwart for the Cougars in the circle, tossing a three-hit shutout. The senior struck out seven and walked none.
— Mike Morea
Wilde Lake 4, Howard 4: The regular-season finale was ruled a tie after 11 innings. Veronica Goode led the Wildecats finishing 3-for-5 with three RBIs. Goode also struck out nine in her 11 innings of work in the circle. For Howard, Maddie Coleman finished with a Howard County seasonhigh 25 strikeouts, pitching all 11 innings. She also went 2-for-3 and Erin Gorschboth had a double.
Baseball
Severna Park 12, Arundel 7: Colton Adams, pitching for the first time in almost two weeks, scattered five hits over five innings of work, allowing three runs with three walks, while striking out eight to earn the win for the Falcons in the Anne Arundel County championship game. Seamus Patenaude finished 3-for-5 with two infield singles, two runs scored and an RBI, while Kody Phillips added two hits, including a double, and two RBIs for Severna Park.
“It’s been an improvement each game throughout the year. We had one of our best arms back tonight. Colton pitched a great game tonight and that’s what we needed,” Severna Park coach Eric Milton said. “We put up a couple runs, then he’d shut them down. We put up another run or two, then he shuts them down again. That’s big for us to get him back.”
Arundel managed six hits, but took advantage of four Severna Park miscues and five walks to tally the seven runs.
Severna Park kicks off state tournament action this Saturday as the top seed in Class 4A East Region II. After a first-round bye, the Falcons will host the winner of fourthseeded South River and No. 5 Annapolis at 10 a.m. Saturday.
Arundel earned the top seed in Class 4A East Region I and will face the victor of the contest between No. 4 Old Mill and No. 5 Meade at 2 p.m. Saturday.
— Mike Morea
Archbishop Curley 10, St. Mary’s 2: Jon Madden and Ryan Merkel brought home the lone runs for the Saints (9-14) in the loss. Four pitchers worked for St. Mary’s, led by Eric Chaney, who allowed six hits, seven runs — two of which were earned — and struck out four in 4 ⅓ innings.
Boys Latin 12, Indian Creek 1: Jack Corrado shipped home four RBIs to lead his Lakers over the Eagles (13-9) on Tuesday. Christopher Kokoski had two of the Eagles’ four hits.