The Rockbridge County High School boys lacrosse team dropped home games against Blacksburg and Jefferson Forest last week, falling to 4-8 with just one contest remaining in the regular season.
Last Wednesday, the Wildcats fell 13-9 to the Bruins at The Fields at Southern Virginia University in Buena Vista, playing at SVU because the Wildcats’ track and field meet was going on at RC.
Preston Rippel tallied five goals and two assists to lead the Bruins (7-5), who would extend their winning streak to five games with an 8-7 victory over William Byrd one night later. Granger Tucker won 19-of-23 faceoffs for Blacksburg, while Ryan Klopfer bagged a hat trick and Connor Caswell made eight saves.
Grayden Brown and Andrew Kelly scored three goals apiece for RC, and John Brooke finished with one goal and three assists. Chase Pooley recorded eight saves between the pipes for the Wildcats, and Caleb Robinson notched five caused turnovers.
Blacksburg scored the first two goals of the night and never trailed in the contest. After RC responded with goals from Jayden Layman and Brooke to pull even at 2-2 late in the first quarter, the Bruins reeled off the first five markers of the second stanza to craft a 7-2 advantage that they would never relinquish.
Still, the Wildcats continued to battle, closing the half on a 3-0 run with goals from Brown, Parker Flint and Kelly to cut the gap to 7-5. Following a tightly contested third period, Brown’s man-down goal at the 11:01 mark made it 9-7 in Blacksburg’s favor.
But the Bruins held RC off the scoreboard for the next six minutes, getting goals from J.T. Tebbenkamp and Rippel to pad the margin back up to four (11-7) and essentially put the game out of reach.
Owen Fotinos chipped in two goals for Blacksburg. Quincy Speers netted a pair of assists for the Wildcats, and Cole Peters had three takeaways.
The Bruins outshot RC 37-29 and – boosted in large part by Tucker’s success at the faceoff dot – held a 33-18 advantage in ground balls. The Wildcats won the turnover battle, forcing 26 miscues while committing 21.
The Wildcats then dropped a 19-6 home decision to Jefferson Forest (11-1) at RC in Lexington on Thursday evening. The game marked Senior Night for Brooke, Layman, Speers, Elijah Fox, Caedon Friski and Ashtin Taylor. Further details were not provided to The News-Gazette.
RC was scheduled to conclude the season on Monday night at Patrick Henry High School in Roanoke. A story on that game, with a season wrapup, will be in next week’s newspaper.
