By Ed Shepherd
CONTRIBUTING WRITER

About time.

In a back-and-forth affair of boys lacrosse action -- a club activity at the high school level not sanctioned by the WIAA as a sport -- Kennedy Catholic and Southwest Titans players competitively fought for victory with the Lancers getting the game winner late in a 12-11 scoring fest at Moshier Park in Burien Thursday.
"It was a full-team win, goalie up to the attack," said Jonathan Schwartz, a co-coach on the Lancers along with Brett Bowker.

Both these teams, the Titans and Lancers, play in the Metro League for lacrosse.

The Lancers play in Division 1 and the Titans -- comprised of players from Burien, Normandy Park, White Center and West Seattle -- reside in Division 2. So, since this was a non-league game, the Lancers stayed at 1-1 in Metro D-1, but moved to 2-1 overall, while the Titans' division record remains 2-3 in Metro D-2 but overall they dropped to 2-4.

The score was 11-9 Kennedy Catholic in the final five minutes before the Titans' Liam Allan, a team captain for that club, notched the last of his six goals in this game to cut the Lancers' lead to 11-10. There were three minutes left at that point and, making matters worse for the Lancers, the Titans tied it up, 11-1, with a minute left in the fourth quarter.

That's when the Lancers' Reed Ellis took the game into his hands. With 30 seconds left in the fourth quarter, Ellis found the net. The game-winner!

"Hadn't scored all game," said Schwartz.

"Hadn't scored all season," added Bowker.

Ellis, a Lancers team captain, rocked the shot that sunk the boat of the Titans' fighting effort in this battle.
A fitting end, then?

"That's what we said, too," said Schwartz, speaking of he and Bowker's sentiment on Ellis' nice play at the end.

It was a nice play, and hopefully some momentum of a game for the Lancers, who were a little above average last season.

The Lancers were 9-7 last season, but that's not something Bowker nor Schwartz are going to be thinking much about going forward this season.

"To us, it doesn't matter," said Schwartz.

Added Bowker, "New coaches, new program."

And, Schwartz, "We feel lucky to be coaching at Kennedy Catholic."

Lacrosse is quite a game. There's a table with a statistician for each squad, seated, and a spotter who helps with tracking the ball during the game, calling out who scores, time scored, etc. on plays throughout the game.

"Lacrosse is called 'the fastest sport on two feet,'" said Bowker.

That doesn't just make sense, it makes perfect sense. So much running around, all game long, players subbing in and out of the game, goals scored often. The ball, too, flying through the air, speedily, a racquetball-size, solid-composite ball that one on the sidelines best pay attention to because if it hits one in the noggin, it's lights out, likely.

A lot of fans were on the opposite side of the benches, the area where the players were for both teams, not to mention each team's penalty box, in this friendly, non-league affair. These players for both teams know each other with some having even played on the Titans and Lancers in the last couple years, too, according to coaches of both teams.

But, the game's scoring went as such, with the Titans drawing first blood, from who else but Allan, who made it 1-0 with 10:54 left in the first quarter of this game with four, 12-minute quarters played out, plus a halftime, so it was a lot like basketball in that four-quarters sense with a break at the halfway point. The Lancers answered with who would be its team's big goal scorer of the game, Sebastian Ferraro, his first stick shot finding net with 4:12 left in the first quarter.

Then the Lancers scored the next two, courtesy of Riley O'Neil. He scored with 1:01 and then 42 seconds left in the first before the Titans' Allan revisited the net with 16 seconds left, cutting the Lancer lead to 3-2, as the first quarter came to a close.

The second quarter started with the Titans' Elliot Trowbridge scoring, tying the match, 3-3, with 11:09 to go in the second. Then the Titans took a 4-3 lead less than 30 seconds later on Ashton Pieris' goal with 10:48 left. The Lancers answered back, soon, with a goal from Lucas Watson with 10:09 left. And Allan, doing more work, scored another, his third, giving him the hat trick, at that point, with 9:52. And Ferraro, not to be outdone, scored again for the Lancers, making it 5-5 with 9:16 left.

"This is a game," at this juncture in the contest, one fan for one of the two teams could be heard saying, out loud, and, it surely was scores galore as 10 balls had found the net up to that point. And this game was not even halfway through the second quarter.

Next up, joining the scoring arsenal, was the Lancers' Payton Williams, who made it, 6-5, for his team with 3:08 left in the second quarter. Then Ferraro showed his might again, doing a move at least a couple times for goals against the Titans, getting the ball behind the goal and running in, making moves to get closer to the net. Then, he turned around near the net, outside the "crease," and backed up, before turning and firing a shot in. The defense experienced difficulty stopping Ferraro from doing that move, again and again. That makes sense, too, that ability to back up into players, in lacrosse, for Ferraro, as he was seventh place at 220 pounds in the 3A state wrestling meet this past Winter at the Tacoma Dome as well as a strong lineman for head coach Bob Bourgette and the Lancer football team.

"We scored a lot of goals right at the doorstep, having to be able to feed the crease and play team lacrosse, " said Schwartz.

So Ferraro was getting into that "crease" borderline area, which is a 9-foot radius box area around each team's goal, and he was turning and firing away. So Ferraro was getting the ball from teammates, like Williams and O'Neil, and getting unassisted goals some of the time.

Ferraro scored, again, backing into the goal this time, and it was 7-5 Lancers with 2:36 left in the second quarter. Allan scored again, with 1:22 left in the second, cutting the Lancers' lead to 7-6, which is how the score was going into halftime.

In the third quarter, Ferraro scored again, unassisted, backing in for the goal, making it, 8-6. Just no answer for that big, athletic, Ferraro move.

But the Titans continued to show mettle, and it was someone not named Allan scoring this one as Albert Grupp scored, getting the Titans back within one, 8-7, with 5:41 left in the third. And then, for the fifth time, this game was again tied when Allan scored, making it 8-8 with 2:48 left in the third quarter.

Then the Lancers' Ferraro made it 9-8 for his team with 2:07 left in the third quarter before the Titans' Andew Pieris scored and the Lancers and Titans were knotted up once again, 9-9, a couple minutes into the final quarter, the fourth period. Next, Williams scored for the Lancers, and Liam Cheskov-Dahlke, and it was 11-9, Lancers. Then Allan scored for the Titans to make it 11-10, leading up to the already-explained furious fun, at least for the Lancers, ending this good effort for both clubs.

"Overall, it was a good game," said Cheskov-Dahlke. "The 'D' was a little slow in the first half, but really picked it up in the second half."

Allan wasn't slow at all in this game for the Titans, but he did only have two goals in the second half and the Lancers' defense clamped down on him in the latter stages of the match, making another player make that game-tying goal, being Ashton Pieris, who made it 11-11 late. Then, the Lancers won it on Ellis' nicely timed goal, the game-winner.

Since these players blend in and around the Burien-West Seattle areas, the Titans and Lancers are friends with each other a while now, said Cheskov-Dahlke.

"Liam (Allan) is a good guy. I've played lacrosse with him all my life," said Dahlke. "And, Ashton Pieris, too, I've known him, too. Both are good competitors."

Kind of a rough sport too. There are times where guys are hitting each other with their sticks (cross checking) or running into each other, like, football, which, incidentally, is a sport that Cheskov-Dahlke was good at for the Lancers last season, being a backfield runner for that Fall sports team.

And Cheskov-Dahlke is a team captain for the lacrosse team, playing the "middie" spot, which is slang term for "midfielder," akin to soccer, the one who does a lot of the work in the middle of the field, a playmaker who is getting the ball to forwards like, Ferraro, Williams and O'Neil, also going back on defense.

"On face-offs, we want the ball in Liam's stick," said Schwartz. "He's primarily closed on defense for us, but comes off the wing, too."

Schwartz termed Cheskov-Dahlke as a "middie" and a "long stick" type of player, who is around the action a lot, not scoring so many goals as assisting them and getting ground balls, like a midfielder in soccer.

And the latter thing said there, "ground balls'" talk, is something that mattered in this game for the Lancers coming out on top, according to Schwartz, with Bowker, agreeing.

"The difference was ground balls and heart," said Schwartz. "You can't be afraid to pick up the ball."