Garnet Valley rolls over W.C. East

CONCORD >> If you think defense wins championships, think about Garnet Valley.

Goalie Jason Rose pitched a shutout in the first half Thursday to spark the second-seeded Jaguars to a runaway 17-5 win over West Chester East in the second round of the District One 3A boys lacrosse playoffs.

The Jaguars (15-4) entertain Haver ford, the 10 th seed, Saturday at 2 p.m. The Jaguars rallied to beat the Fords earlier this season.

“We played sloppy early,” Jaguars coach Frank Urso said. “I think Jay Rose, who had an unbelievable first half, made us look a whole lot better than we were. They had some good looks at him and hemade some nice stops. He shut them down. Once we started putting the ball in the net I think athletic ally we had a little bit of an advantage.”

Rose stopped nine shots before taking the rest of the night off. He exited with a 10-0 lead. Make no mistake, Rose got help from his defense.

The Vikings (11-9) got some pretty good goalie play of their own in the first half despite the lopsided score. Senior Kenny Pugh, who didn’t play the position until this, his senior year, prevented the scored from being 18-0 at the intermission with 11 strong saves.

One shot struck Pugh in… OK, let’s not go there. Lesser men would have given up the fight right there.

“I think that’s the mentality everybody’s had, to step up, to be the next man up if one goes down,” Pugh said. “It seems like everybody’s been ready to do that. My teammates have been withme every step of theway to help me.

“This wasn’t the night we wanted. Everybody went in with a lot of momentum coming off that win Tuesday .( The Jaguars are) good. They’re going to make a nice run, for sure.”

Vikings coach Jim Schorn knows what it’s like to be on thewrong end of one of those goose eggs.

“It’s a great team,” Schorn said of Garnet Valley. “Their goalie really stood out early on. Andwe created offense for them. We gave them their first goal when one of our defenseman picked up a ground ball and it slipped off his stick. Another time we cleared the ball right to them. Two of their first four goals were really given away by us. They capitalized on all of our mistakes. When you do that, when you have a team that that’s good, there’s little chance of getting back in it.”