Submitted by Langley Lacrosse:
May 12, 2011: For the fourth year in a row the Langley Saxons (13-2) have claimed the Liberty District title in boys lacrosse. This latest conquest comes by way of a convincing 12-4 defeat of the Madison Warhawks (10-7), who have now fallen to the Saxons in each of the last three district finals. Langley has beaten Madison in five straight since an April 2009 overtime loss to the Warhawks that was the sole defeat in the first state championship season for Coach Earl Brewer’s squad.
Eight Saxons pushed the goal’s digit on the scoreboard, with junior Mike Adams leading the pack with a hat-trick, the eleventh occasion this season when he has scored three or more goals in a game. Three other Langley attackers scored, with Jack Sandusky and J. T. Meyer getting two apiece while Sean Ahearn supplied one goal to go with three assists. Hunter Bentz, Dan Gallucci, Clay Rivers and Luke Salzer each contributed one goal from the middie position.
Senior Walker Franks and freshman Luke Kurtz both delivered a pair of goals for Madison.
Saxon junior Andrew Spivey and Warhawk sophomore Matt Hayden guarded the net for their respective teams and were credited with 7 and 11 saves, respectively.
Meyer opened the scoring a little over a minute from the opening face off to give Langley a lead it would never relinquish. Madison kept matters within reach in the early going, and went into the halftime break down by only three with the score 5-2. But the determined Saxons supervised much of a third quarter, engineering a five-goal scoring run that increased the margin to eight before a Warhawk was able to furnish any kind of reply.
Suffocating Langley defense, even during several man-down situations, tamed the Madison strikeforce, which managed to add only a pair of goals in second-half play, and then only after the Saxons had the finish line well within sight.
Langley reached the district final by way of comfortable victories over the Fairfax Rebels and Thomas Jefferson Colonials. The Warhawks survived a tough fight against the Stone Bridge Bulldogs, following a convincing dismissal of the Marshall Statesman, to earn the chance to claim top district honors. The only previous meeting between the two sides this year went in favor of the Saxons, who enjoyed a 10-6 triumph to start their Liberty District campaign at Madison in late March.
The third-quarter scoring barrage gave Langley the imposing goal advantage with not much more than one period of play remaining. Adams initiated the outburst less than two minutes into second-half play when Meyer intercepted an errant clearing pass and handed off to his fellow attacker for the score and a 6-2 lead. Ahearn saw a shot of his own saved shortly after the re-start, and Saxon senior middie Davis Wagner had his goal-bound attempt steered away by the busy Hayden.
Adams provided the acrobatic finish near the nine-minute mark when he needed to jump to receive a feed-in pass from Ahearn, at the same time flicking in past Hayden from close range before completing the maneuver. The Warhawk goalie then blocked what would have been a fourth goal for the Langley junior a couple minutes later, although follow-up play saw Sandusky quickly regain possession leading to the senior depositing into the Madison cage for an 8-2 lead near the middle of the third period.
Saxon junior Spencer Gorham powered forward on attack right from his clear win of the ensuing face-off but Hayden managed to keep out the middie’s scoring bid. Rivers was more successful less than a minute later, though, when the junior lasered in a 15-yarder to add his name to the score log. Salzer then got into the act at the end of transition play with sophomore Robbie Byrne pilfering possession at midfield to spark a counterattack. The Langley defender quickly got the ball to junior Max Mullen, who furnished the assisting pass that set his sophomore middie lineate well to dispatch from just outside the crease.
It was not all one way action during this stretch, as the Warhawks did gain some possession with promising form. Madison was awarded a one minute man-advantage due to a Saxon penalty — an attacking Warhawk became the meat in the sandwich of a double block that officials read as a cross-check foul — but this man-up situation yielded only one off-target shot and another effort that was blocked by junior defender Chandler Suk, who promptly executed the steal and won the possession that ultimately led to the Sandusky goal.
Madison senior Collin Sekas ventured into the attack right after Rivers netted but the longstick middie’s optimistic, goal-bound offering failed to get through the maze of Langley defenders. The Saxons were then caught in an off-sides infraction, which gave the Warhawks 30 seconds of man advantage, but that was thwarted when Byrne came up with the steal that set up the Salzer goal seconds after penalty time had expired.
Madison finally supplied a reply when sophomore Jackson Cole embarked on an emphatic clearing run that led to Franks’ second goal of the game, this one delivered from eight yards out. The Warhawks received two additional man-up opportunities late in the third quarter — a one-minute advantage for a slash and then a 30 second man-up for yet another Langley off-sides misdeed. Byrne extinguished the only real threat posed with a timely block and subsequent turnover that preserved a 10-3 margin for the Saxons to end the third period.
The first half had featured more balanced play and, despite the 5-2 score-line at its conclusion, offered real potential for a vigorous second half that never really unfolded in a way Coach Rich Hodge’s squad might have hoped.
Meyer’s game-opener came by way of a zipped-in assisting pass from Ahearn that easily reached the scorer just outside the crease for the sure finish by the freshman only 66 seconds into the contest. Ahearn then produced his goal to double the Langley lead less than two minutes later. The junior had an initial shot from close range blocked but managed to snap in past Hayden at the second time of asking after the ball rebounded back for the fortunate recovery.
Saxon defender Brendan Dwyer moved forward with possession right out of the ensuing face-off, with the senior wheeling around to shoot from eight yards hoping to surprise Hayden, but the Warhawk goalie was alert to the danger and gathered in the attempt. Madison promptly mounted an attack in the other direction but Spivey was equal to the early challenge.
Franks finally got his Warhawks on the scoreboard a minute later after sustained possession by Madison led to the middie dispatching past Spivey at the end of finely-placed, cross-crease pass from senior middie Daniel Fowler.
Adams put Hayden to work again soon after but a pair of shots from the Langley attackman were well saved by Hayden. Adams was more successful at the start of the second quarter when he used an assisting pass from Salzer to snap in past Hayden for the 3-1 lead.
Gallucci made it four for the Saxons with an unassisted strike from 12 yards out, with the senior drilling in low to Hayden’s right through a number of players who may have screened the netminder giving the shot the edge it needed to get by into the net.
When Meyer supplied his second goal of the game near the midpoint of the second period, off an assist from Ahearn, it looked as though Langley already had set its course for the eventual win with little headwind in the forecast. But Kurtz pounced moments later with Warhawk face-off middie Kyle Rowe cleanly winning the center spot re-start. The sophomore passed off to freshman attacker Kevin Tesch, who in turn set up Kurtz for the score, which pulled Madison within three with nearly six minutes of the first half still ahead.
Gorham launched his own attack out of the following face-off but Hayden managed to save the eight-yard shot. The Warhawks then pressed their assault in the other direction but that effort was neatly stifled by Mullen and Byrne, with the middie holding up his opponent long enough for the defender to intervene with a block, steal and new possession for the Saxons. That led to shots by Adams and Sandusky although the first was turned away while the second sailed just wide of Hayden’s cage.
A slashing call gave Langley a one-minute man advantage late in the first half but Hayden snared the one shot — an attempt from six yards by Bentz — coming out of the resulting Saxon attack.
The encounter produced a flashpoint of sorts as the first half was coming to a close when Dwyer imparted some close defending on sophomore Nick Gabriel, the recipient of a hard check while lingering near Spivey’s crease in an attempt to retrieve the loose ball. The Madison attacker remained on the ground for some time after play was stopped, but managed to walk off with little assistance once he shook of the effects of the hard knock. The incident, which did not produce a flag from officials, and Gabriel’s recovery did visibly rouse the Warhawk troops, although the adrenaline apparently did not survive the half-time intermission.
The proceedings did approach the boiling point early in the final quarter but not before Langley deployed some further man-down defending, with senior lonstickman Clark Andersen getting the groundball and clearing the threat to snuff out one man-advantage, followed by Byrne intercepting at the right time to run down time on a one-minute penalty coming shortly after that. Ahearn then got a couple of close looks at net, with his first effort steered away by the Madison netminder and the second banging of the cage pipe. Aggressive Warhawk defending finally caught up with lively Ahearn in the form of an illegal body check on the Saxon attacker, which ignited a scuffle just outside Hayden’s crease with flags flying.
In the end, Langley managed an extra-man situation for only 30 seconds, with the penalty service not amounting to anything of consequence on the scoreboard. Sandusky was able to get a second goal later in the period, followed by a score by Bentz, the junior claiming the goal with less than three minutes remaining. Madison did get a final word in by way of an extra-man goal by Kurtz, with the attacker getting his second of the game, this last one on a bounce shot from eight yards that snuck in over Long, who had replaced Spivey in net in the late stages of the game.
Both teams have home games to start the Northern Region play-off tournament beginning May 17.
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