DeMatha's Stephen Tepsick put the Stags up, 7-5, when he won a faceoff and scored 11 seconds later.
DeMatha's Mike Smail scored two goals as part of the Stags' balanced offense.
By Ryan Mink
rmink@digitalsports.comNot even 10 seconds had passed after DeMatha’s 9-8 win over St. Mary’s Ryken Thursday before a DeMatha boy’s lacrosse player yelled out, “We’re getting back our championship trophy!”
Ever since St. Mary’s Ryken embarrassed the Stags during the regular season and then ended DeMatha’s eight-year WCAC championship streak, the Stags have been yearning to get some payback. And finally, on their home dirt, they did, earning the conference’s top seed heading into the playoffs.
“At the beginning of the season, this was what it was always about,” DeMatha senior Shane Ryznar said. “We wanted to come out here and beat Ryken.”
Ryznar led the Stags (10-4) with three goals and was aided by two first-quarter goals by senior Sean McKenna and two goals by senior Mike Smail. DeMatha’s goalies, senior Matt Miller and junior Ryan Brant, combined to make 23 saves.
“I remember those feelings from those two feelings from those two games and I just told everybody over the weekend and over the first couple days of practice that we need to come out here and get that championship back,” Brant said. “This is the first step to it.”
St. Mary’s Ryken beat DeMatha, 17-8, behind five goals and five assists by attackman Zack Angel exactly a year before Thursday. Then Angel had three assists in St. Mary’s Ryken’s 13-12 win over the Stags in the championship game on May 14.
“Honestly it was the worst feeling,” McKenna said. “Eight years of other teams and other players kind of look down on you for that one. It was tough. We try and look past that now.”
DeMatha returned 14 seniors with the sole goal of erasing that memory. As McKenna said, they all felt this was the year to win it back. For once, DeMatha wasn’t the team with the target on its back. And while that’s often a somewhat uncomfortable feeling for teams, the Stags yearned for that status once again.
McKenna started Thursday’s game with a goal three minutes and nine seconds into the game. He scored again with 17 seconds remaining in the first quarter to give DeMatha a 3-1 lead.
The Knights (8-6) came back to tie the game at 3 on a goal by Addison Goodley. Nearly four minutes later, Ryznar put the Stags up for good and on the final play of the first half, Miller saved a shot and quickly got the ball to Smail, who gave DeMatha the clear momentum heading into halftime with a goal with three seconds left in the half.
“Whenever we get down it’s always a struggle to fight back,” Smail said. “Getting out early on them today was key today because we had the momentum throughout the game.”
St. Mary’s Ryken narrowed the score to 6-5 on a goal by Kyle Yates. DeMatha senior Stephen Tepsick won the resulting faceoff and went straight down the field to score just 11 seconds later, igniting a three-goal DeMatha run to make the score 9-5 heading into the fourth quarter. Michael Thomas and Ryznar notched the other two goals.
But just when it looked like DeMatha had the game in its hands, they were slapped with three penalties at once and hit with another just seconds later, putting them three men down. Ryken’s Bryant Schmidt capitalized and the Knights’ Pat Brennan assisted on the next goal and scored 1:03 later to bring St. Mary’s Ryken to just one goal behind with 1:08 remaining.
Angel had the ball in his stick with 50 seconds left. Guarded by DeMatha’s Dave Gruner, Angel’s shot was saved by Brant, who made 12 second half stops. He tossed the ball the length of the field and DeMatha ran out the clock for the win.
“I didn’t care where everybody else was, I was just trying to track the ball down,” Brant said. “Once I got the ball in my stick it was a great relief.”
While Thursday’s game certainly wasn’t the WCAC championship, it clearly showed who is in the driver’s seat for the title considering the Stags also beat Good Counsel over the weekend and Gonzaga before that. But the Stags haven’t started celebrating yet.
“This is not the most comforting thing,” McKenna said. “It definitely helps [erase last year’s memory] but I can’t say I feel so good right now.”