By Chris Goldberg
TopLaxRecruits.com, Posted 6/29/13
Behind a strong defense and solid goaltending, the Christian Brothers College boys’ lacrosse team won its first state title since 2007 with a 7-6 win over St. Louis University in the Missouri Scholastic Lacrosse Association state championship at St. Louis Scott Gallagher Soccer Park.
CBC (14-5) finished the year with 12 straight victories by taking a back-and-forth game and avenging an early-season loss to the defending champion Junior Billikens (14-7).
Cadets junior attackman Max Keeley was named the game’s Most Valuable Player, scoring two keys goals.
SLUH handed CBC an 8-6 defeat on April 6. CBC had not defeated SLUH since 2010.
SLUH’s Jack Kinzel netted two goals in the first quarter and CBC got a goal from Jimmy Gunn and another from All-State midfielder Mike Beckham to make it 2-2.
Beckham later tied it again at 3-3 and Keeley’s tally with 2:55 left in the first half made it 4-3, before adding another in the third quarter to make it 5-3. The Junior Billiken scored twice to tie it, 5-5, but Christian Schveninger put the Cadets up for good, 6-5, and Keeley fed Parker Cordova for a 7-5 lead with 9:42 left in the game.
“We lost to them in the regular season and I knew we had to play well defensively,” said CBC coach Eddie Condon. “Our goaltender (senior Riley McLean) played great and the defense was excellent.”
Condon’s defense was led by senior All-American Zach Turnure (Ohio State), senior Dominic Polizzi and junior Luis Martinez.
“We had three wonderful defensemen and our goals against average was 6.0,” said Condon.
Condon also noted that the team’s balance helped a relatively young team (four seniors were starters) jell as the season progressed.
“The key also for us was when we hit the stage in our season when we began to play as a team,” he said. “Offensively, there wasn’t one particular individual. Each night, someone stepped up and that have us a lot of confidence.”
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.