By Tom Peace
TopLaxRecruits.com, Posted 3/31/15

OWINGS MILLS, Md. – Senior attackman Ben French scored four goals and Max Smith posted 14 saves to help guide IMG National (FL) to a 12-10 victory over host McDonogh School (MD) Tuesday.

IMG National traveled north to play top teams in the hotbeds of high school lacrosse. IMG recently had beaten St. Augustine Prep (NJ), 22-17, and lost to The Hun School (NJ), 14-13, before playing McDonogh (No. 3 in the Epoch Lacrosse North America Rankings) on Tuesday.

“Whenever you play a team like (McDonogh) it is special,” said French, who has signed with Vermont. “We are a 3-year-old program, so to beat a team ranked No. (3) in the country is pretty awesome.

“It’s important to prepare so we watched a lot of film. We were thinking about how we were going to shoot and play their defenders. Obviously, we’re not going to take these guys lightly so this is good preparation for the next game.”

McDonogh led most of the first half until IMG shooters started to find some room through the Eagles defense and bury some impressive shots past goalie Jacob Stover.

“They are great off ball, early in the game we were sleeping a little bit,” said Stover on how the IMG offense figured out the McDonogh defense. “They had some easy one on ones with us.”

IMG led 8-6 at the half after trailing by two goals midway through the second quarter.

Then McDonogh (5-2) was able to find some momentum as Robert Clark (4 goals) put his team on his back again, like he did in the Episcopal Academy game on Saturday night, scoring three straight to eventually tie the game 10-10 at the 7:37 mark.

But French and Co. were too fast around the cage and the stick skills from Tehoka Nanticoke (3 goals), Foster Cuomo (2 goals) and Massimo Bucci (1 goal) wore down the Eagles defense.

“It’s a really disappointing loss and we didn’t show up to play in the first half,” said McDonogh coach Andy Hilgartner. “We had a lot of defensive lapses and we didn’t handle the ball real well, especially in the first half.”

One of the glaring problems for the Eagles was they couldn’t figure out IMG goalie Smith, a Florida Southern signee

Hilgartner said he was the difference maker: “I thought he was really good. When we did get out opportunities he stoned us a bunch of times.”

IMG National improves to 3-1 on their tour of the hotbeds and will now play No. 1 Haverford (PA) on Friday.

IMG National 12, McDonogh 10

IMG: Ben French 4/0, Tehoka Nanticoke 3/0 Mitchell Laffin 1/0, Robert Hudson 1/0, Massimo Bucci 1/0, Foster Cuomo 2/0; Max Smith 14 saves

McDonogh: Robert Clark 4/0, Robby Black 3/1, Jackson Morrill 1/3, Connor Young 1/0, Barrett Sutley 1/0, Jacon Stover 6 saves