After narrowly defeating the archrival BCC Barons (6-7) for the first time in six years during the regular season, the boys’ lacrosse team faced the Barons for the second time this season on Wednesday, May 10. This time though, with everything on the line as it was the first round of the single-elimination playoffs. Once again, the Wildcats (8-4) emerged victorious in a 9-7 win to advance to the regional semifinals.
Junior captain and attacker Noah Diamond led the team with four goals and sophomore attacker Ryan Gardner had four assists on the night.
“It felt good, a couple of them were kind of lucky, but it felt good getting my teammates involved because it’s a team sport. Assists are better than goals like they always say,” Gardner said.
Diamond had a behind-the-back goal in the second quarter that brought a ton of energy to the team and the crowd. The win signified the first playoff win for the boys’ lacrosse team since the class of 2023 entered high school.
“It meant a lot to them definitely, we don’t have a lot of seniors, but every one of them makes a huge impact on this team. My freshman year, we played them in the playoffs and that was the Covid season, we didn’t really have many opponents, but we lost to them three times that season and it hurt. It hurt that year’s seniors and I think the seniors this year, we witnessed it and they were like, we’re not doing this again. It’s good to come out on top … always feels good to win against BCC,” Diamond said.
The game was tied at halftime, but the Wildcats were able to break away with four straight goals in the third quarter. In the fourth, it looked like the Barons could be coming back, but junior captain and midfielder JR Dubose scored a goal with 3:29 remaining to put the Wildcats up by three goals which was the dagger for BCC. Junior goaltender Alex Klein made numerous stops throughout the game including many crucial ones in the fourth quarter.
The Wildcats’ opponent in the semifinals will be the Churchill Bulldogs (11-1) who are the reigning 4A State Champions. The game will be played at Churchill on Friday, May 12 at 6 p.m.
“I think we match up really well against them. We have a really strong defense as you saw [against BCC]. This was a low-scoring game … If we don’t hit the pipe, we get a couple more bounces, the [BCC game] is a blowout compared to what it should have been, so I think we stand a chance, it’s not out of the picture at all,” Dubose said.
