It may be too early in the season to call any game "must-win," but the thought of dropping to 0-2 in league play didn't sit well with the No. 2 Boys' Latin lacrosse team.
That was apparent in the Lakers' fourth-quarter play against No. 1 McDonogh in Friday's Maryland Interscholastic Athletic Association A Conference showdown.
After losing momentum when the visiting Eagles scored two goals in the last 26 seconds of the third quarter to even the score, the Lakers weren't fazed. Instead, junior attackman Logan Wisnauskas scored two of his game-high four goals and junior goalie Jack Pezzulla shined in a dominating fourth quarter that lifted the defending league champions to an 11-8 win over the Eagles.
Boys' Latin, which opened the league slate with a 15-14 loss at Calvert Hall on Tuesday, improves to 9-2 overall and 1-1 in the MIAA. After an impressive 9-6 home win against No. 3 St. Paul's on Tuesday, McDonogh (7-3) also goes to 1-1 in what already looks to be a balanced league this season.
"I classify that as good a win as we've had just given the nature of the beast. It's really hard to go 0-2 in this league. … We beat a very good team today," Boys' Latin coach Bob Shriver said. "They scored two goals in the last 26 seconds [of the third quarter] and that's so demoralizing. But, my gosh, our kids showed really a lot of resiliency."
The Lakers seemed to be taking hold of the game with consecutive goals from Luke Shilling, Wisnauskas and Anthony Wyler to claim an 8-6 lead with 2:48 left in the third quarter.
But the Eagles responded with two perfectly placed shots from Barrett Sutley 22 seconds apart in the final 26 seconds of the third quarter to leave the field energized for the fourth quarter.
Wisnauskas and Pezzulla (10 saves) highlighted the strong fourth quarter for the Lakers. After his first-point blank shot was stopped by McDonogh goalie Jacob Stover (eight saves), Wisnauskas put in his own rebound to give the Lakers a 9-8 lead with 10:14 to play. Patrick Spencer made it 10-8 less than two minutes later and then Wisnauskas sealed the win with his fourth goal with 3:28 to play. Pezzulla, who made four stops in the fourth quarter, made sure with a fine reaction save on Jack Parr's shot with 2:55 to play.
"We stuck to our game plan. Coming off of Tuesday at Calvert Hall — we lost — we were really down about it," Wisnauskas said. "We kept listening to Coach Shriver and kept listening to the coaches telling us what to do. They put us in the spots and we just found a way to get the win."
Devin Shewell finished with two goals and two assists with Greg Ey adding two goals for the Lakers. McDonogh got a three-goal, one-assist effort from Robert Clark.
McDonogh coach Andy Hilgartner said the challenge for his Eagles was to learn from the loss.
"We showed a side of ourselves today that we hadn't shown for a long while. We kind of lost our poise a little bit," he said. "This was really our first true road game of the season, so we knew what kind of environment it would be. But we didn't handle it very well. They made their breaks and they converted them when they had the chance and we had a couple of opportunities that we didn't convert, and that ended up hurting us in the end."
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Boys lacrosse
2 Boys' Latin 11, 1 McDonogh 8
Goals: M – Clark 3, Sutley 2, Morrill, Young, Black;
BL – Wisnauskas 4, Shewell 2, Ey 2, Spencer, Shilling, Wyler.
Assists: M – Morrill, Parr, Gray, Sutley;
BL – Shewell 2, Wisnauskas, Spencer, Weatherford.
Saves: M – Stover 8; BL – Pezzulla 10.
Half: M, 5-4