FIRST TIME, LONG TIME
Ballston Spa claims first-ever boys lacrosse title
EAST GREENBUSH, N.Y. » The journey was familiar for the Ballston Spa boys lacrosse team, but the outcome was different for this group, capturing the school’s firstever Section II title with a dominating 21-5 win over Queensbury Friday afternoon at Columbia High School.
The high-octane Scotties offense once again scored more than 20 goals in the contest, firing 34 shots on the Spartans goal in the first half and never leaving the outcome in doubt taking a modest 5-2 first quarter lead and bloating it to a 14-4 halftime lead and shutting out Queensbury in the third.
“I think from Day One we’ve wanted to play fast and part of playing fast as you can’t really let off the pedal until your coaches tell you to because that mentality of go, go, go, go,” Ballston Spa coach Lucas Snow said. “It really puts a lot of pressure on other teams and if we let off that for a second, then we’ve kind of gotten away from who we are.”
For University of Albany-bound senior Sam Swingruber the idea of pelting a netted goal with shots
is second-nature for the Burnt Hills-Ballston Lake/ Ballston Spa hockey captain who finished with four goals and an assist in the championship game.
“Whether it’s hockey, lacrosse doesn’t really matter, I’m going to come out flying either way,” Sam Swingruber said. “Both sports we play a fast or offense.
“Hockey we play faster and you’re going to fall behind, but that’s why I think it’s such an easy transition from hockey, lacrosse because the way we play, it’s fast. It’s up and down, you know, we don’t really get a yellow call, red call coach normally calls us for green and we’re off to the races.”
Ballston Spa advanced to the Section II final in 2016 and had a lead before Burnt Hills rallied for the title and fell to the same squad in the semifinals on two other occasions before dismissing the Spartans on its way to this year’s title.
“This senior class, we’ve been talking about this since sixth grade,” Swingruber said. “We’ve known, we’ve been talking about it, thinking about it and we knew this was going to be our year.
“Honestly it’s indescribable the feeling like all the buildup coming so close two years ago and it’s just, it’s amazing.”
Ballston Spa was led by Joe McDonald’s six goals and assist with Zac Schuette providing four tallies and four assists for the Scotties squad to go with Swingruber’s four goals.
“We all work together, I mean we don’t really pay attention to any of that to be honest,” Joe McDonald said. “We just try to get as many goals on the board.
“We found out that we put up 60 goals in three games, so that’s pretty cool to have been a part of something like that.”
Boasting 13 seniors on the roster, the upperclassmen have been the story for this year’s Scotties, but Swingruber said they were there to lead and then pass the torch.
“It’s always a full team effort, you know, we can’t get those goals without our defense getting to the other side of the field,” Swingruber said. “Honestly, I wouldn’t put it on the seniors. I wouldn’t even put nearly half on our seniors. It’s always team effort and it’s always, it’s always a gathering.”
Friday’s gathering started early as the Scotties were aware that it could be their last outing together and made the most of it.
“We had a day off from school today, so we had an opportunity to be together, have breakfast, have lunch together, watch a movie together,” Snow said. “It was kind of a really cool day, we shared a lot of words with it and I think we’re going to have more when we all get back to Ballston Spa.
“You heard them singing ‘Country Road’ together. We’ll have a sing along on the way home and we’ll have some more words together to kind of finish this night off.”
Ballston Spa will face the Section IX champion, Warwick Valley 4 p.m. Wednesday afternoon back at Columbia High school with the winner advancing to the June 2 regional at Lakeland High School.