RC Boys Claim Comeback, 9-7, In Season Opener
With an offensive surge late in the game, the Rockbridge County High School boys lacrosse team earned a 9-7 comeback win at Fluvanna County in the season opener on Tuesday of last week in Palmyra.
The Wildcats got off to a solid start, but they had trouble scoring, taking 10 shots in the first quarter without converting. By halftime, the Flacos led 3-2.
Fluvanna opened the second half by scoring three quick goals, extending its lead to 6-2. The Wildcats answered with goals by senior Andrew Kelly and junior Pat Looney, both midfielders, late in the third quarter to cut the lead to 6-4, creating a momentum shift that carried into the fourth quarter, when the Wildcats outscored the Flacos 5-1 to pull off the win.
“We were efficient on man-up offense, scoring on both opportunities we had, and were 10 percent on man-down defense,” said second-year RC head coach Davey Jones.
Fluvanna picked up an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty late in the game, and the Wildcats “stayed disciplined when things got chippy and did what they needed to do to close it out,” said Jones.
Senior attackman Grayden Brown led RC with four goals and had one assist, while Kelly scored three goals. Looney contributed two goals and two assists and collected five ground balls. Sophomore midfielder Parker Flint picked up five ground balls, dished out an assist, and won 55 percent of his faceoffs.
In goal for the Wildcats, senior Chase Pooley made 17 saves, saving 70.8 percent of the shots fired on him.
Jones said that, since the Wildcats lost two games by one goal last year, “It was great to see the guys overcome a fourgoal deficit in the second half to kick off the season with a ‘W.’ More than the comeback, we stayed composed and did what we needed to do to close out a game that remained tight till the end.”
The Wildcats look to improve on last year’s season, when they went 4-9. From that team, RC graduated six seniors, led by allregion attackman John Brooke.
This year, the Wildcats have 13 seniors, 10 juniors and three sophomores. Kelly is serving as a co-captain for the third year in a row, and the Wildcats’ other co-captains are Brown, Looney and seniors Caleb Robinson, Aiden Meyers and Cole Peters. Robinson and Peters are defenders, while Meyers is a midfielder.
Serving as assistant coaches for the Wildcats are Thomas Stillwell, Ryan McCullough, Daniel Grimm and Dave Jones, father of Davey.
Davey Jones said the theme for this year’s team is “set the pace.” “We don’t want to be a team that reacts; we want to be the team that dictates,” explained the RC coach. “We return a lot of players and have a strong senior class. We’re looking to build on last year, and Fluvanna was a great start.”
“We’ve put a lot of work into conditioning this preseason, and we hope to see the results of that as the season progresses,” added Jones.
The Wildcats were scheduled to play host to Western Albemarle last night and will play at Albemarle next Wednesday, April 1, starting with junior varsity action at 5:30 p.m.
