By Ryan Mink
rmink@digitalsports.com

Before Tuesday night’s WCAC boys lacrosse championship, DeMatha Coach Scott Morrison wrote “Composure” on the white board and even defined it from the dictionary for his team.

Yet it was a lack of composure that got the Stags really rolling Tuesday night.

With DeMatha trailing St. Mary’s Ryken by a goal in the third quarter, a small skirmish broke out and a punch was thrown by a Stags player. He was ejected from the game and DeMatha went down two players.

Ryken scored in just 20 seconds to take a two-goal lead but DeMatha had the fire to answer. The Stags scored six of the next eight goals to beat St. Mary’s Ryken, 9-7, at the University of Maryland’s Ludwig Field and capture their second straight WCAC championship.

DeMatha has now won 11 of the last 12 conference titles with the one hiccup coming against St. Mary’s Ryken in the 2007 finals. Thus finally avenging that loss two years later was the sweetest feeling of it all.

“That was the worst feeling I’ve ever had in my life, especially because that was one of the first times I started and played,” said DeMatha senior goalie Ryan Brant, who was named the game’s MVP. “Even though we won last year we wanted to come out and show them that second meeting we’re ready for them.”

DeMatha (15-7) scored three goals in less than three minutes following Williams’ ejection.

Sophomore Ryan Belka notched the first to bring the Stags within a goal, junior Pat Harbeson scored the next on a long-distance bouncer to tie the game for the first time since its beginning and just 10 seconds later senior midfielder Tommy Chroniger gave DeMatha its first lead at 6-5.

St. Mary’s Ryken (13-4-1) tied the score at 6 then again at 7 before senior midfielder Kyle Clise put DeMatha up for good just 10 seconds later off a won faceoff by junior Philip Poe. Harbeson added his team-high third goal with one minute, 39 seconds left to seal the win for the Stags.

“I kind of got a couple guys together and said, ‘We can’t go out like that,’” Harbeson said. “We could have bagged it, they could have scored five goals. But we came together as a team. … This one feels great because we came back as a team and really played as a team.”

St. Mary’s Ryken (13-4-1) stormed out to a 3-0 lead on goals by sophomore Connor Cook (3 goals), junior Will Fejes and senior Patrick Brennan (3 goals).

DeMatha came back with two straight goals, the first from Chroniger and the second from Clise off an assist by Hilly Summers, but the Knights continued to have the edge through the majority of the game and took a 4-2 lead on Cook’s second goal and 5-3 lead on Brennan’s second right after the skirmish.

“This was probably the biggest bunch of overachievers I’ve had in years,” ,” Ryken Coach John Sothoron said. “When you’ve got the spirit like that and the fight, that makes me really really proud.”

Problem for St. Mary's Ryken was DeMatha had just a little more fight – literally and figuratively.