The Riverside Warriors beat J.L. Mann, 14-13, Thursday night in a lacrosse match at the Reservation.
Jordan Adams scored the game-winning goal with 1:24 remaining.
“On the last play we did a great job moving the ball,” Adams said. “The offense was working perfectly and my teammate, Peyton Lambrecht, did a great job finding me in the crease.”
Riverside is 5-1 in Region II-4A and 6-4 overall. Christ Church plays at Riverside Friday at 7 p.m.
J.L Mann is 4-2 in Region II-4A and 8-4 overall. Dorman is at Mann on Monday at 7 p.m.
The Warriors were first on the scoreboard less than a minute into the first quarter with Clay Walters scoring.
But the Patriots would dominate the rest of the first period scoring three consecutive goals – Will Kupec, Keegan O’Connell and Marshal Gilmer. O’Connell would also score again before the quarter was over making the score 4-3.
O’Connell would continue leading the Patriots scoring three goals in the second quarter giving Mann a 7-6 halftime lead.
“We knew coming in (O’Connell) was going to be a main weapon,” Riverside Head Coach Jay Black said. “He always has great shots, he shoots from all angles and everywhere. So we had to make some adjustments to quiet him a little.”
“(O’Connell) was really quicker to keep up without an interference call,” defender Shane Osbuszewski said. “It was rough, I had to make sure he didn’t break me, but we have a great team and we had a good week of practice. Today we brought the juice”
Despite an early goal by Riverside’s Meltzer Harrison, the second half continued to work in favor of the Patriots with goals made by Christian Deeter, Gilmer and O’Connell.
The Warriors came back in the last four minutes of the third period to take an 11-10 lead on four consecutive goals – Walters, Henry Evans, Colin Geeswein and Taylor West.
Riverside’s faceoff player Mark Blasko finished the game with 22 handoffs, six in a row during the third period.
“We just had to begin with a good rhythm and make sure we could get the ball down to the offense so they could score,” Blasko said. “We started off a little slow in the first half, but in the second half I picked it up and got the ground balls playing 100 percent.”
Adams was set up for he winning goal in the fourth quarter with the game tied, 13-13 on an error made by J.L Mann goalie Connor Schwartz when the ball slipped out of his stick and into his goal while swinging it back to make a pass.
“It was just karma, you know one call went their way and one call went our way,” Black said.