In a busy week of lacrosse that has essentially been a tour of private schools playing their public counterparts, St. Anne’s-Belfield and Charlottesville clashed for the first time since 2005. Both teams made their respective state tournaments last year, but with the Saints coming out strong in the first and third quarters, the Black Knights found themselves in a pair of holes they were unable to dig out of. With Will Grossman and Connor McCullough each netting hat tricks, STAB was able to cruise to a 16-3 win.
“The second quarter we thought we got a little sped up, where we felt like we had to get to the cage really quick,” said Saints assistant coach Myron Ripley. “But we wanted our kids to work the clock and take advantage of our depth and we felt like that would be a problem for them. Once we got back to doing that the kids grasped it and made the unselfish plays, the extra passes.”
The first and third quarters belonged to STAB entirely as they outscored Charlottesville 12-0 in those two frames, first building a 7-0 lead as it dominated faceoff battles and converted on high percentage shots.
“We come out on fire, on all cylinders with the defense keeping them contained and then on offense, we kept taking it in and finding the open man,” Grossman said.
In the second, Charlottesville found its game and scored two of the next three goals. There the Black Knights dominated the time of possession, playing patiently and seeing the fruit of that result with Willis Bocock and Lucas Levine each scoring.
“We were able to come up with the ground balls and just run out offense,” said Black Knights coach Drew Craft. “I didn’t see their defense take the ball from our attack so much as we just threw the ball away most of the game, which was really unfortunate.”
But going into the half down 8-2 was the high point for Charlottesville. After that, the Saints continued to win face offs and slowed the game down themselves and started looking more carefully for holes in the CHS defense. While Grossman carried the load with his three goals in the first half, Davis, McCullough and STAB’s overall depth was overwhelming as STAB went into the fourth quarter up 13-2.
“We had to comeback (in the third) with the same strategy, holding the ball and getting out setups,” Grossman said. “We had to keep hold of the ball for time as long as they did (in the second).”
It more than worked. With the lead and game well in hand, both teams worked in their benches from there and both were able to tack on late goals.
On the night for St. Anne’s, Davis finsished with a 5-point game on his 3-goal, 2-assist effort. Grossman also had three goals. McCullough had a pair of goals. Healy had three assists. Six other Saints also found the back of the net. Defenseman John Griffin finished with a game high eight ground balls. Colin Bressan split time with Eric Buhle in net with the pair combining for 11 saves and Buhle coming up with six of the them.
“We’re trying to find ourselves and obviously last year we had so many seniors that were so adept at a multitude of things,” Ripley said. “Now we’re trying to find that with a new group of kids playing a difficult schedule and that’s what we’ve done in the past. When you play against a local school, a state school, I think that helps lead to success.”
Bocock had two goals and three ground balls for Charlottesville. Liam McCarthy led his team with five ground balls.
“We’re a shallow team as it is but with some injuries, we just aren’t deep enough and so we’re looking forward to spring break and getting healthy,” said Black Knights coach Drew Craft.
Charlottesville (2-3) will get a break before jumping back into Jefferson District play with Monticello on April 9.
STAB (3-2) hosts St. Xavier (KY) on Monday at 5 p.m.
