The Jesuit Varsity Lacrosse team recently took on Plano Senior High as well as their competitive rival Southlake High School in their first two regular season games.
The Rangers traveled over to Plano to open up their regular season against a mediocre out-of-district team. Just the week before, Jesuit went 3-0 in their own Jesuit Invitational tournament to start their preseason. Like the teams in the tournament, Plano Senior was no match for the hungry, athletic Jesuit lacrosse team.
The scoring came quick and easy for Jesuit as Christian Miller ’15 started the game off strong in the first quarter, scoring the first two goals of the game. Gavin McClure ’15 and Sterling Coker ’15 kept the ball rolling with two goals of their own, respectively. To end the quarter, Jesuit allowed one goal from Plano Senior, a goal that ended up being their only one of the whole game.
After the first quarter, it was no mystery who was going to take home the win. McClure would lead Jesuit to victory offensively with four more goals of his own throughout the rest of the game. Garrett Munck ’16 also helped power the offense by scoring two additional goals, one of which was “a sweet backhand goal” as described by defensive player John Michael Priddy ’16. Levi Jobe ’15 was also a huge contributor to the win by dominating the face-offs to give Jesuit possession through most of the game. With what became a 16-1 victory, the Rangers proved their hard work has paid off and that they are ready for whatever else is to come this season.
After a big win at Plano Senior, Jesuit traveled to Southlake Carroll to face one of their rival teams. Last year, Jesuit fell to Southlake in the semifinals of the playoffs, so Jesuit yearned for a victory over their nemesis. This game was huge for Jesuit due to the rivalry, but Priddy also explained that, “Going into the game, there was no secret. This game was for Zach Kissick ’16. Having transferred from Southlake his freshman year, the whole team wanted to play well for Zach and I think we achieved this. That was by far our biggest motivation.”
The game started off slow with both defenses unwilling to give up any easy points, but it would be Jesuit who opened up the scoring in the first quarter with a goal from Coker. Coker continued to beat up on the Southlake defense with another goal to start the second quarter. Christian Miller then took the scoring into his hands with two goals on Southlake, which would be answered by only one Southlake goal. By the half, Jesuit led 4-1 and would go on to hold this lead for the rest of the game. With four goals in the third quarter and two more in the fourth, Jesuit won by a huge margin of 10-1.
The Jesuit defense played a fantastic game, holding the Dragons to only one goal, an impressive feat. Mac Elliot ’16 highlighted what Jesuit did defensively to lead to their success: “Our defense never allowed their offense to settle down. We constantly applied pressure and stayed in their gloves all night. All week the defense practiced working on getting through picks, which accounted for our high successes rate against their offense.” Elliot went on to say, “The shut out was almost achieved thanks to the outstanding intensity of the defense and because of Marco Robertson’s great performance at goalie.”
The victory was monumental for the young team and will give them momentum moving forward. Priddy explained that “This win against a rival program is a huge morale booster and will really help our momentum heading into tougher games the rest of the season. This win keeps things moving in the right direction and the team can sense this.” Jesuit plays their first home game against Keller on February 25th, so come out and support your Rangers as they continue to win this season!
