La Plata boys lacrosse defeats Huntingtown again
Lebarron, Getgen combine for eight goals as La Plata boys lax downs H-town again
When the La Plata boys lacrosse team delivered its first win ever over Huntingtown in last year’s season opener, it was a major hurdle for the program. Well, make it two in a row. Tuesday night, the teams met again in a Southern Maryland Athletic Conference crossover regular season rematch that was all what it was cracked up to be as the Warriors held off the Hurricanes for the 10-8 win.
Before La Plata’s first win over the Calvert County power last season, it had dropped five straight meetings since joining the conference in 2011.
“That win last year helped us with our confidence and got us over that hump and proved that we could play with those guys,” said La Plata head coach Kris Bayer, whose team improved to 4-1 overall with the win. “Some of our guys play with them on the [Calvert] Cannons and against them in club, so they are familiar with them. I think that was the last hurdle, our stick skills and lacrosse IQ has caught up a little bit.”
The game was tied at 1 after the first quarter, but La Plata took a 3-2 halftime lead. The Warriors led 6-4 at the end of three quarters.
“It was really a game of runs for us, but I thought we really locked down defensively,” said Bayer, whose allowed just two first-half goals. “It was a team effort. We moved the ball well offensively. We are getting there we still have yet to put a game of four quarters together.”
La Plata senior Ben Lebarron, a 2016 U.S. High School All-American, showed his offensive firepower, finishing with
five goals, three in the second half, to go along with one assist. Cody Getgen also contributed with three goals in the game, scoring back-to-back times in the third to give the Warriors a 6-3 lead.
“First off, Huntingtown is a great team and in practice we worked a lot on possessing the ball a lot more,” Lebarron said. “It just opened up a lot of opportunities for me to get open. Our defense played well and didn’t allow the to make any quick moves. When we had the lead we made them rush some shots.”
Jordan Sinclair and Trevor Owens also notched one goal apiece.
“A lot of teams put their best defender on Ben and Huntingtown played very tough defense,” Bayer said. “He just has knack for getting open and getting his hands to shoot, just a great player.”
La Plata took its biggest lead of 8-4 with 7 minutes 27 seconds left in the final period. Huntingtown came to within 9-7 with 3:55 left on a goal, but did not come any closer for the rest of the game.
Huntingtown (5-1) was led by senior Jake Brookman with five goals, with two of his three second-half goals coming in the final period to keep his team within striking distance. Sophomore Tommy Dalrymple finished with two goals and junior Erik Lee added one.
“For the first 40 minutes of the game we didn’t play with any intensity, but if we play the way we did the last eight minutes of the game, we won’t lose a lot of lacrosse games,” Huntingtown head coach Pete Kerwin said. “La Plata did the little things right tonight and you can’t start slow on these guys.”
Huntingtown senior goalie Will Settle finished with eight saves, while Warriors junior goalie Kolton Gragan finished with six.
Both teams now head into tournament action against out-of-area opponents on Saturday.
La Plata is scheduled to be in the Marriotts Ridge High School tournament in Howard County. The Warriors will take on Middletown at 10:30 a.m. The winner of that game takes on Urbana or Marriotts Ridge in the championship game at 2:30 p.m. and the loser will play in the consolation game at 12:30 p.m.
Huntingtown is scheduled to face Tuscarora of Frederick County on tomorrow scheduled for 11 a.m. at the Wright Memorial Tournament held at C. Milton Wright High School in Bel Air. The winner of that game will face the C.M. Wright-Damascus winner at 3 p.m. in the championship game and the loser will play in the consolation matchup at 1 p.m.