EASTON — It was the No. 1 seed.
It had won 11 of its last 12 games, and had already twice beaten its opponent.
But none of that matter to Saints Peter and Paul High boys head lacrosse coach Todd Wolters after the first half of Tuesday’s Maryland Interscholastic Athletic Association B Conference semifinal.
After mustering just one first-quarter goal and carrying a four-goal cushion into halftime, Wolters made clear to his team he wasn’t happy.
“Coach pulled us over at halftime and told us that this could be the end of our season,” sophomore face-off man Grant Messick said. “’We could be done here.’ But none of us want that. I think he kind of brought that out of us, just saying we could be going to Navy this Friday to win a championship that hasn’t been done in a decade.”
The Sabres responded, outscoring No. 4 Gerstell Academy by three goals in a decisive third quarter, catapulting them to a 13-8 victory on a dreary Tuesday afternoon.
Sts. Peter & Paul (15-4) advances to Friday’s MIAA B Conference championship game where it will meet second-seed and two-time defending champion Archbishop Curley (11-7) at Navy-Marine Corps Memorial Stadium at 5 p.m. The Sabres defeated Curley twice during the regular season.
“They were taking a team lightly, like they’ve already won,” said Wolters, whose team won 7-6 at Gerstell on April 12, then routed the Falcons 16-3 on their home turf April 30. “And they’ve done that before. We just lose focus.”
In his first game back from injury, JJ Rardin (five goals) gave the Sabres a 1-0 lead with 2:22 left in the first quarter, when he scored off an assist from Andrew Steinhardt.
Gerstell (6-10) tied the score on Bronson Peters’ goal less than 2 minutes into the second quarter. Rardin gained possession out in front of the net and fired his second goal just under the crossbar to make it 2-1 just 18 seconds later. But the Falcons came right back with Ryan Ellis beating Sabres goalie Hank Wolters (11 saves) to make it 2-all.
Davis Kimminau whipped a shot in from the right side, and less than two minutes later, set up Vincent Dyer’s goal to nudge Sts. Peter & Paul to a 4-2 lead. But Peters (four goals) scored at the midway point of the second quarter to make it a one-goal game again.
“They came out and they didn’t want their season to end,” Messick said of Gerstell. “They came out with nothing to lose. We’re the one seed. They come out and they beat us, then it’s a huge upset. And if they don’t it’s not what they were expected to do. So I think they had that mentality while we came out thinking, ‘Well, we smoked them before. We’re going to roll them this time.’ But they didn’t. They came out and they fought really hard.”
The Sabres scored the last three goals of the half, as Liam Durnbaugh, Noah Zimmerman and Rardin each tallied to make it 7-3 at the break.
“Our guys were in it,” Gerstell head coach Ryan Drenner said. “We stayed in the fight the entire game. That was the biggest difference. We were here a couple weeks ago April 30. Very lopsided. We try to learn a lesson from every game regardless of the outcome of the game. And so for that one it was we had to come up with a better plan of how to travel down here and be ready to go from the jump. So we changed how we warm up just to be a little bit more alert from the start. I thought our guys did that today and we played four quarters of a great lacrosse game.”
Gerstell cut its deficit to 7-4 just 19 seconds into the third quarter on a goal by Peters. Zimmerman scored for the Sabres, but Matthew Schols answered for the Falcons.
Sts. Peter & Paul took control the remainder of the quarter, getting one goal each from Steinhardt (four assists) and Kimminau, and two more from Rardin for a 12-5 lead heading into the fourth quarter.
“We know how good we are,” Wolters said. “The third quarter we go and we really just started opening it up. And then in the fourth quarter we thought it was done.”
The Sabres extended their lead to 13-5 before Gerstell scored the game’s final three goals.
“We weren’t hustling,” Wolters said of certain stretches. “We’d come down and throw it away and then they would go down and score on unsettled situations. They had eight goals and I know five to six were unsettled and we can’t have that.
“It’s a win. We’ll take it,” Wolters said. “You can’t win a championship unless you’re in the championship. And we’re in the championship.”
BASEBALL
COL. RICHARDSON 1, ST. MICHAELS 0
AMERICAN CORNER — Jack Walls walked, advanced to second and third on a pair of low pitches, and raced home on a wild pitch in the third inning for what proved to be the only run Tuesday, as Colonel Richardson blanked the Saints to win the Class 1A East Region II final.
Colonel Richardson winning pitcher Daniel Hesson hurled a two-hitter. Connor Wheeler and Henry Mullikin each had a hit for the Saints.
St. Michaels pitcher Jacob Seek allowed one hit, that coming with two outs in the sixth inning when Hesson singled.
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