Downingtown East edges tough Rustin squad to remain unbeaten in Ches-Mont
Downingtown >> The Downingtown East boys lacrosse team was hit with two strong storms at DiSerafino Stadium Thursday evening, coming out of them with a hard-earned 10-9 win against West Chester Rustin.
The first storm was a heavy, driving rainstorm that halted play for about 45 minutes with the score tied at 1-1 and 6:16 left in the first quarter.
The second, and more long-lasting, storm was a motivated Rustin squad (7-3 overall) that had just come off a tough loss to Downingtown West and entered Thursday’s contest with a 4-1 Ches-Mont League mark.
Downingtown East (10-1 overall, with its only loss to Springfield) was looking to defend its undefeated Ches-Mont League record.
“A team like Rustin, who takes those kind of tough losses and regroups under good coaching and with good players, are difficult to beat, and Rustin was difficult to beat tonight,” said D-East head coach Joe Horvath. “Rustin came out on fire, so we had to make some defensive adjustments in the second half, and we had to get back to fundamentals on offense.”
Rustin held a 6-4 lead with 2:27 left in the second quarter, with four goals coming from high-scoring sophomore midfielder Marek Seaman and two goals from senior Owen Murray.
D-East’s defense shut down the Golden Knights for the next 15 minutes of play, and by the end of the third quarter led 10-7.
“In the third quarter, we had to find our matchups quicker, and we had to slide a little earlier to contain some of [Rustin’s] threats,” said Horvath. “On offense, we had to do a better job of possessing the ball, and finding the right shot instead of the first shot.
“Our long-stick middie, [sophomore] Mike Waite, did a great job tonight (two caused turnovers, two clears, four ground balls). I want to credit our close defense, who had specific matchups and did a good job tonight – Liam Quinn, Drew Deves and Sam Barton (two caused turnovers, one clear, three ground balls).”
Waite scored a goal to cut Rustin’s lead to 6-5 with 2:15 left in the second quarter, then D-East tallied again with 1:14 left before halftime to knot the score at 6-6.
“This was definitely our toughest game of the season,” said Waite. “We came out a little weak in the first half, but in the second half, we got some great ground balls on the wings, won a bunch of faceoffs, and I feel that was a key factor in the game. We found our defensive matchups a lot quicker in the second half, too.”
In the third quarter, D-East’s Alystair Hemberger scored three goals to give the Cougars a 9-7 lead, then Luke Wetzel tallied his second goal of the game just one minute before the end of the period to make it 10-7. Hemberger finished the game with four goals and two assists.
“Alystair Hemberger did a nice job playing offense from X,” said Horvath.
In the fourth quarter, Seaman scored his sixth goal of the game with 6:47 to play to make it 10-8. D-East used up some time in the fourth quarter with patient, precision passing.
Murray, who along with Seaman has been the Golden Knights’ two leading scorers, tallied his third goal of the evening with 1:21 left to cut the Cougars’ lead to 10-9, but D-East controlled the ball most of the final minute to come away with the win.
Other key contributors for D-East were NJ Cogliati (won five of six faceoffs, two ground balls), Bo Horvath (two clears, three ground balls, one goal) and Bryson Kolinsky (one goal, one assist).
Rustin head coach Kevin Philbin said, “We had a really good defensive effort from all of our guys. [Junior defender] Drew Lanius played exceptional, Tucker Flynn did a really nice job on the faceoff. Our goalie, Teddy Novak (nine saves), has done a really nice job for us, stepping in after our starting goalie was injured four games ago.
“I think this was probably our most complete team game so far. Downingtown East is a really good, complete team as well – this was the best lacrosse game we’ve been a part of this season. We told our guys that these are the type of games we’re here to play. It’s not the greatest, not coming out with a win, but if we want to get better we’ve got to play teams like this, and compete, and we did, so we’re happy with the way our guys played today.”
Another key feature of Thursday’s game was the heavy, driving rainstorm that stopped play with 6:16 to play in the first quarter and the score tied at 1-1. Puddles formed on the field during the rainstorm, but the turf field drained quickly following the deluge and play was able to be resumed after about 45 minutes. For a few minutes prior to the delay, the players played through the heavy, driving rain.
“It was tough – our clothes were heavy with the rain, and there were puddles in our shoes,” said a smiling Waite. “It was tough to move your feet.”
Downingtown East 10, West Chester Rustin 9
West Chester Rustin 1 5 1 2 – 9
Downingtown East 2 4 4 0 – 10
West Chester Rustin goals: Seaman 6, Murray 3.
Downingtown East goals: Ostertag, Horvath, Kolinsky, Hemberger 4, Waite, Wetzel 2.
Goalie saves: WCR – Novak 9; DE – Milon 6.
