McDonogh sophomore Andrew Hurdle contemplated passing, but shot instead.
Good decision.
Hurdle scored his second goal of the game with 28.2 seconds left in the second overtime to give the host Eagles a 10-9 win over Boys' Latin in a key Maryland Interscholastic Athletic Association A Conference matchup of the two top-ranked teams in the metro area. The final score was McDonogh's only lead at any point in the game.
"We ran a play where we did a fake flip of the ball, and then Jack [Simmons] threw me a pass, and it was wide open," Hurdle said. "I thought maybe I should have passed it to Jackson [Morrill] on the back pipe, but it was wide open, so I took it and it went in."
The game was anything but easy for the No. 1 Eagles. McDonogh (14-1, 7-0) trailed 7-3 at the end of the third quarter and 9-7, with less than four minutes left in the game. Still, as they've done so many times this season, the Eagles found a way. It was McDonogh's fourth overtime win of the season.
"We struggled a little bit today with things like faceoffs and ground balls, but it's great to battle back and get a win like that," McDonogh's Jack Parr said. "It will really help our confidence going forward."
The Eagles looked far from the best team in the area in the early going. McDonogh lost the first three faceoffs and the Lakers (11-3, 6-1) wasted little time capitalizing on each, getting goals by Matt Brandau, Luke Shilling, and then another by Brandau to take a 3-0 lead at the end of the first quarter.
McDonogh rallied with tallies from Parr and Hurdle to cut the margin to 3-2 with 3:38 left in the first half, but Logan Wisnauskas snuck a shot past Eagles goalie Sean Lanier to give Boys' Latin a 4-2 halftime lead.
The Eagles got the first goal of the second half when Parr beat Lakers goalie Jack Pezzula to cut the lead to 4-3, but Boys' Latin got two tallies from Shilling and another from Brandau to take their four-goal lead into the final quarter.
Then McDonogh came to life.
The Eagles looked like a different team in the fourth quarter, getting two scores from Jason Sarro, and goals from Parr and Barrett Sutley to tie it at 7-7 with 7:38 left. After the Lakers regained their composure, they again took the lead with goals by Wisnauskas and Basil Aburn to make it 9-7 with 5:06 left.
McDonogh got one back on a Morrill goal on a great pass from Sutley with 3:42 to go, and then the tying goal by Simmons with 1:14 left in regulation.
Both teams had chances in the first overtime and the early part of the second, but Lanier and Pezzula were up to the task and made key saves. The Eagles worked hard to get the ground ball that set up Hurdle's heroics, with several members of both teams on the turf fighting for it.
"There were some great efforts by our guys on some of those ground balls late in the game," McDonogh coach Andy Hilgartner said. "It's not like we haven't been challenged this year, but this was the toughest battle we've had all season. It was getting a little uncomfortable in the fourth quarter, but different guys stepped up, and nobody panicked. You can't ask for more than that."