Submitted by Langley Lacrosse
 
Langley bounced Chantilly from Northern Region title contention in boys' lacrosse with a 6-4 semifinal win over the Chargers this past Monday at West Springfield High School.

The Saxons (17-1 overall) advance to the regional final on Wednesday evening at South County High School, where they will face Robinson (11-5), winners over W T Woodson in last Monday's second semifinal game.  By virtue of their victories on Monday, Langley and Robinson have earned berths to the state tournament that starts later this month.

The Chargers (13-2), last year's Northern Region and state champions, will square off against the Cavaliers (11-5) on Wednesday in a consolation game to decide the third Northern Region team to qualify for the state playoff competition.

In Monday's first-game action, Langley middie Joey Byrne picked up a hat trick, while fellow middie Alex Devlin netted a pair of goals and attacker Ethan Bailey delivered one.  Chantilly got one goal each from middies Brian Abatemarco, Maris Gallegos, Joey Marson and Devon Westerman, in its first loss to a Northern Region opponent in two years.

The Saxons wasted little time to ignite the contest, when in less than a minute from the opening face-off, Byrne managed to make good on the game's first shot on goal, staking his side to a 1-0 lead.   

Both sides engineered some half-chances in the early stages as the contest acquired further form and flow, but more than seven minutes of game time passed before the arrival of the second goal.  The Chargers tied the game at the 4:31 mark of the opening quarter when Gallegos' short-range shot trickled in past Langley goalie Galen Kuney, who was only able to deploy a partial block when the Chantilly middie pulled the trigger.

Charger netminder Derek Kegerreis was busy again at his end of the field when he denied an attempt by Devlin with about three minutes left in the first period, but could not keep out a second bid from Byrne about a minute and a half later.  The active middie used a spin dodge move to position for a left-hand shot that found the back of the net from 10 yards out for the 2-1 Saxon lead. 

Chantilly came close on back-to-back occasions in the dying moments of the first quarter, with the first effort deflected by a defender's longstick, and the second sliced just wide of an unguarded corner of Kuney's cage.

The Langley goalie was put to work again one minute into the second quarter when he was forced into a stop of a dangerous Charger shot. The save was starting point of a counterattack that put Saxon middie Charlie Scharfen into position to assist Bailey on a fast-break score at the 10:48 mark.  

Two Devlin bounce shots, one about three minutes into the second quarter and the second with little more than two minutes remaining in the first half, found their way past Kegerreis to set the score at 5-1.  The third quarter was also punctuated by good saves by the Chantilly goalie on attempts by Byrne and, prior to his second goal, by Devlin, while Kuney kept out a dangerous Charger shot with about four minutes left in the first half.  

What was looking like a comfortable four-goal, and possibly greater, lead for the Saxons going into halftime took a modest turn in Chantilly's favor when Abatemarco pulled one back for his Chargers with :46 seconds remaining in the first half. The score came at the end of a sequence that started out with Langley on offense and looking good for grabbing a sixth goal. But the sustained possession ended with an unforced give-away, this from a pass back to an outside middie that missed its target and rolled to the midfield area where the Chargers gained possession and promptly mounted an attack.  he Chantilly senior made no mistake when he fired in past Kuney for a 5-2 scoreline before the first half expired.   

Westerman, then, cut the deficit to two goals only three minutes into the third quarter. The Chargers pressed their attack again, but the Saxons replied about three minutes later with the completion of Byrne's hat-trick. The goal arrived through transition play featuring a series of crisp passes -- between defenders Trevor Shafran and Brendan Dwyer, from Dwyer to middie Jeremy Kuney, from Kuney to longstickman Thomas Robinson -- with Robinson supplying the feed pass for the finish by Byrne.     

The Chargers reduced the margin back to two goals with a little under five minutes remaining in the third quarter when Marson was sure with a left-handed shot that eluded Kuney for Chantilly's fourth goal of the contest.

Marson's goal set the score-line for the remainder of the game, which offered solid defensive performance at both ends. Charger longstickman Steve Gombos continued to stifle the offensive efforts of Langley attackman Ryan Ningard, and Saxon defenders held the Chargers strike force at bay for the duration.

A two-man advantage early in the fourth quarter presented Chantilly another life-line, but Saxon longpole Robbie Bennett joined fellow defenders Dwyer, Shafran and Robinson to deny the Chargers during the 30-second penalty.

Kegerreis then saved well on several occasions preventing Langley from expanding its lead. In addition to a couple scoring bids by midfielder Jeremy Kuney just before the midway point of the fourth quarter, the Chantilly goalie came up with a fine block on what looked to be a sure second goal for Bailey. The attacker's shot caromed upward and over Kegerreis, with the ball glancing off the crossbar of his net on the way down and landing kindly for the Charger netminder to retrieve before it could roll in for a sixth Langley goal.     

The last authentic scoring threat that Chantilly initiated became a scramble near Galen Kuney's crease area with about three minutes remaining in the game. Saxon defender Joey Cortina was quickest to collect the loose ball that had dribbled out of the scrum. The Langley senior then calmly delivered the ball to his goalie with his Saxons safely within reach of the finish line for the evening.