Too much Braves
Chopticon boys lacrosse debuts with win over McDonough
The Chopticon boys lacrosse team graduated 18 players from a year ago, including several starters from last season’s 6-7 club.
In Monday evening’s Southern Maryland Athletic Conference nondivision boys lacrosse contest, the Braves showed how much offensive firepower they have on the roster.
Chopticon’s high-octane offense, speed and precision passing was too much for host McDonough to overcome in a 21-3 season-opening victory in Pomfret.
Chopticon (1-0 overall), which was dominant in winning face-offs and getting out in transition, scored five unanswered goals in the opening minutes and took a 8-1 lead after the first quarter.
It outscored the Rams 6-0 in the second period to take a 14-1 lead at halftime, forcing a running clock in the second half.
The Braves also assisted on eight of the 21 goals in the game.
“We have big plans this season,” said Chopticon head coach Richard Krockow, whose team this year has just five seniors. “In practice we were playing offense versus defense for a couple of days and the offense took it very seriously and today it worked. We have a young team, but these guys have been playing together forever. What a great start to the season, we had great scrimmages, good scrimmages. I’m very excited for this group.”
Seven different players reached the scoring column for the Braves as juniors Austin Gregory, James Sullivan and Vontae Hoffert each scored four goals.
Junior attackers Jordan Rodriguez and Reilly Rodriguez each scored three goals, while senior Tyler Romero added two goals. Senior Marcus Pickeral also tallied a goal in the win.
“We have a lot of juniors and some seniors and we’ve been playing together since we were like 5 years old,” said Gregory, who scored three times in the first five minutes of the game, including the first goal of the game 41 seconds in. “We have good chemistry and it is easy to run plays and we know where each other is on the field. It is the first game, we still have a lot to work on. Today we just wanted to look for open cuts and execute.”
McDonough (3-1), which suffered its first loss of the season after winning the first three games of 2017, including a pair over Bishop McNamara of Prince George’s County and St. Charles at the Thomas Stone tournament on Saturday. In the first three games, the Rams scored 53 goals, but ran into a tough test in their home opener.
“McDonough scored a ton of goals their first few games, so we knew we couldn’t come out here sleeping on them,” Krockow said. “We talked about it on the bus, warming up and when we took the field that we couldn’t let them hang around.”
Freshman Brady Ferriter and seniors Marc Landicho and Gunner Kerig scored for the Rams.
McDonough is scheduled to be at Patuxent on Friday, while Chopticon is next slated to host La Plata on Friday. Both contests are scheduled for 6 p.m. “We could not match up with [Chopticon] in transition,” McDonough head coach Michael Ferriter said. “We really struggled defensively down low near the crease. Overall, they were more experienced and lack of depth hurt us. No question Chopticon was the most difficult for us so this season, but we weren’t surprised by the outcome.”