Falcons Lacrosse Defeats St. Francis

~By Gary Hickey

The Scotts Valley Falcon varsity lacrosse team was looking forward to playing the strong St. Francis Lancers in Mountain View. The Falcons needed a good test, and on Friday night, they got one.

The Lancers are a well coached and disciplined team, so the Falcons needed to get out to a fast start and they did. Captain Wesley Koenig gives them a taste of his speed and skill and snipes his first goal 30 seconds into the game assisted by Collin Corbella. A minute later Spencer Fogelquist finds Koenig for another goal. Midway thru the quarter, attackman Kevin Niemeyer makes a beautiful feed to Spencer Fogelquist for his first goal.

The Falcons start rolling, and then attackman Collin Corbella takes over the show. The Lancers can't find a defenseman to stop him, he rattles off three consecutive goals within two minutes. St. Francis finally gets on the board with two minutes left in the first quarter. And with 45 seconds left in the quarter Koenig finds Corbella who blasts in his fourth, making the score 7-1 Falcons.                

In the second quarter, the Lancers dig in and put in two of their own before the Falcons answer with two more goals. One, an unassisted dodge and shoot by midfielder Bradley McClarnon, the other, Fogelquist scores a beauty from the crease. But the Lancers again storm back and score two in the last minute of the half, making it 9-5.

St. Francis has the momentum going into the third and score first. The Falcons are off course for most of the quarter, making mental mistakes and were unable to get the offense moving. Again Corbella takes over and can't be stopped, he takes his man one on one and flat out beats him to the goal, twice in the last two and a half minutes of the third quarter. 11-6 Falcons.                

Bradley McClarnon scores his second early in the fourth. Looks like a good lead for the Falcons, but they start to stumble. They can't buy a faceoff and St. Francis starts to mount a comeback. After killing off six penalties successfully up until this point, St. Francis makes them pay for the next two by firing in two goals. The Lancers are on a run, a five goal run. Falcon mistakes are being converted to goals by the sharp shooting St. Francis offense. With two minutes to go, they pulled within one. Wesley Koenig stops the Lancer run with the final goal of the game, giving the Falcons a two goal win, 13-11.                

There were four Falcon scorers, Collin Corbella led the way with six goals and two assists, Wesley Koenig had three goals and four assists, Spencer Fogelquist added two goals and one assist and hard working midfielder Bradley McClarnon contributed two goals. The defense was led by Scott Hunter with six ground balls. The man down unit killed off seven of the nine penalties while goalie Chris Martin made 10 saves in the win.

The defense had a good matchup and held up against a good team. Scotts Valley is hoping that these close games will improve the teamwork needed to be successful at the next level. The 10-1 Falcons are back in action this week when they play Urban High School and Mitty.