DEFENSE: Dulaney's Jay Mann (right) takes on Urbana's Matt Thomas in a clash of midfielders in a Class 4A-3A state title game won by Mann's Lions, 8-7, on Wednesday night. The Lions won their state-leading eighth Maryland championship, avenging an earlier loss by the same score. (Photo by Adam Satterfield)
OHHH YEEEAH!! Members of Dulaney's Class 4A-3A state championship squad rejoiced on Wednesday night at UMBC's Stadium in Catonsville following their 8-7 victory over Urbana.
by Lem Satterfield
and Travis Crane
(Ana Heneberry contributed to the video highlights and interviews below)
Senior Brad Ruzicka side-armed a right-handed shot from about 20 yards through traffic past frozen keeper Colin Baker with 1:29 to play, and his Dulaney defense made his only goal stand up for an 8-7 victory as the Lions of Baltimore County won their state-leading, eighth Class 4A-3A state title before a screaming, capacity crowd at UMBC Stadium on Wednesday night.
Senior Cody Lehrer scored four times, Spencer Martin scored once and had two assists, Ben Yancheski had a goal and an assist, Jay Mann scored once, and Alex Williamson made 13 saves for the Lions (17-2), who are ranked 15th in the DigitalSports Top 20 behind the 14th-ranked Hawks (16-2).
"I saw that there was under two minutes left. I came in, side-stepped and took my man into the middle, dropped my head down low and dodged and ducked and scored the winning goal," said Ruzicka, one of several Dulaney seniors, still standing on the field moment after the game.
"I tried to keep more of a relaxed head," said Ruzicka. "I know there was some pressure going on, but I was in a calm state of mind and just put the ball where it needed to go."
The win not only ended a game that was tied four times, but it avenged an 8-7 loss to the Hawks (16-2) in a game played at Dulaney on April 25. The triumph also brought to a close a season during which second-year coach, Jake Reed, guided his alma mater to championship glory.
In the frenzied moments following Ruzicka's score, there was a battle for a loose ball in the heart of the Lions' defense near the goal.
Lions' defender, Mackey Scanlon came up with it, scooping the ball off the turf. Then, while falling forward, Scanlon launched it into the night before it eventually landed in the Hawks' end as the clock ticked down to five seconds.
The loss was the third straight for the Hawks of Frederick County in as many seasons to an eventual state titlist. Urbana was a Class 3A-2A state runner-up to Mount Hebron of Howard County following a 9-7 loss in 2006, and was edged, 7-6, in last year's Class 3A-2A state semifinal by eventual champ Glenelg of Howard County.
"The game was back and forth, and we really worked hard to get to this point. The game could have gone either way. Maybe if we played them again, we would have tied. Who knows what would have happened," said coach Joe Conner, whose Hawks overcame an early, 3-0 deficit for a 5-3 halftime lead in their first meeting with the Lions, but who never led Wednesday night's game.
"The kids have worked really hard to get into this position, and we're coming on, so maybe we'll be in position to win one of these one year," Conner said. "This was a one-goal game here, a one-goal game there, just two, very evenly-matched teams. Pretty-much, whoever had the last move on the board was going to take it."
Wednesday night's game-ending sequence played out almost exactly in reverse of their earlier matchup, when the Lions, down, 8-5, with 8:33 to play, nearly came back to win.
In their first meeting, the Lions were within, 8-6, with 4:51 to play after Ruzicka scored off of a pass from Mike Roe. But a subsequent attempt by a Lions' teammate was deflected wide and out of bounds by the Hawks' Greg Anderson before Baker made his 13th and final save with 2:15 to play.
Next, in succession, Lehrer sent his shot just wide of the goal; Martin hit the pipe and then missed another promising opportunity. Lehrer scored his third goal, and the game's last, with 4.5 seconds left, but that was too little, too late.
"I talked to Cody about it, and we were just going to come out here and play as a team and play as hard as we could," said Lions' senior midfielder Jay Mann. "We ran the offense today and we really emphasized that. We ran the offense, we scored goals, and that's why we won the game."
The game was tied at 1-1, and, 2-2, the latter being the halftime score. But in applying similar effort as that which he used at game's end, Scanlon was the primary catalyst in the Lions taking a lead of 3-2 at 10:49 of the third quarter.
In that case, Scanlon, in traffic, launched a high pass to Martin, who made a difficult catch just beyond the midfield stripe with a defender on his back.
After a couple of steps, Martin found Lehrer streaking in on Baker (seven saves). Lehrer scored on that play, as well as the next, for a lead of 4-2 with 8:44 left in the third quarter.
Yancheski, a reserve who replaced injured starter, Kevin Tignall, when the latter went down in the first quarter, then scored for a 5-2 lead at 7:42 of the third quarter. But the Hawks stormed back to within, 5-4, at with 2:44 left in the third quarter following a pair of athletic moves by sophomore Brian Patton and junior Blake Bing (two goals).
Patton scooped a ground ball and emerged from a crowd to fire the ball in over his left shoulder from a distance to make it 5-3 at the 3:12 mark, and Bing stuffed the ball past Williamson to bring the Hawks within a goal of the lead before falling into the crease.
Martin found Lehrer, yet again, for a lead of 6-4 with 1:30 left in the third quarter. But the Hawks were back within a goal at 6-5 following a diving shot by Brandon Oster (two goals, one assist) 41 seconds before the fourth quarter.
Oster, who scored five times with an assist in the first game against Dulaney, set up the next goal that made it 6-6 with 9:46 to play, as Ronjohn Dadd (one goal, one assist) put the ball between the legs of Williamson from about 10 yards out and from the left of the keeper.
Williamson recovered moments later, however, to cradle an identical shot by Dadd from nearly the exact same spot. Then, with 4:32 to play, Yancheski fed Lehrer from behind the goal as the Lions took a 7-6 lead.
Williamson failed to thwart Bing's tying goal, which was scored from over-the-shoulder off of a pass from faceoff midfielder Matt Thomas with 1:59 to play, and after having leaped over a defender whose body screened Williamson.
Reed, nevertheless, praised Williamson, mostly for making eight of his 13 saves in the first half.
"Alex has had a great season. A phenomenal season. I think his save percentage was like 66 percent. We played Hereford and held them to three goals. The first time we played Catonsville, we held them to five goals," Reed said. "He was one of the reasons we won the state championship today, because Alex Williamson stepped up when we needed him."
Williamson preserved the Lions' early, 1-0 lead with point-blank stops against Ryan Dutton-O'hara (one goal) and Patton (one goal). The Lions led, 2-1, when Williamson reached high for another save with 20 seconds left in the first quarter.
Tied at 2-2, Williamson's save and subsequent ground-ball pickup allowed the Lions to call a timeout with 8:02 left in the first half.
And with under three minutes left in the half, Williamson thwarted the Hawks while facing a man-down situation, stopped a point-blank shot that ended a fastbreak, and made another save, followed by a clear.
"[Williamson] made the big saves. He got ground balls, made good out-let passes," Reed said of Williamson, who was to play a reserve role before the projected starter didn't pan out. "It's amazing where he's come from after not even playing at all last year to being one of the stories of the season."
But there are so many others.
There is Martin, who missed half of the season with a broken arm, only to come on during he second half and to finish with 24 goals anad 31 assists.
There is Roe, the faceoff midfielder who transfered from Severn of Anne Arundel County, a member of the MIAA's A Conference.
Roe, whose faceoff edge was, 11-9, over Thomas (one assist), "showed up the second week of practice, lived in our area, and had been commuting an hour each way and thought it best for him to change," said Reed, calling Roe, "one of the best faceoff guys in the state who can faceoff, go down, score a goal in five, six seconds."
There was Scanlon, a former Boys' Latin student who "came back home to Dulaney," said Reed, adding that Ruzicka also transferred to the Lions' program.
A 1973 graduate of Dulaney High, where he earned All-Metro honors as a goalie, Reed coached the private school McDonogh of the Maryland Interscholastic Athletic Association A Conference -- widely considered the nation's premiere high school boys' lacrosse league -- to two league titles before arriving at Dulaney.
Reed is in his second year as head coach at his alma mater, having replaced the legendary and longtime coach, Gary Schreiber, who won his state record seventh Class 4A-3A title in 2005.
Reed served a year as Schreiber's assistant in 2006, when the Lions were dethroned in the state final by arch rival Severna Park of Anne Arundel County, this year's semifinal loser to the Hawks.
Reed was named head coach last season, when the Lions lost to Virginia state power, Robinson, were dethroned as county champs by rival Franklin, and lost their Class 4A-3A State semifinal game to a Wootton squad which, in victory, became Montgomery County's first-ever state lacrosse finalists -- boys or girls.
Yet Reed refused to soften up his schedule, adding to it an improved Urbana squad and retaining private school Boys' Latin of the MIAA's A Conference, which is widely considered the nation's premiere league for high school boys' lacrosse.
"If you're going to be the best, you've got to play the best teams. It puts you in situations where you're down sometimes, and you've got to come from behind," said Reed, who lost his best player, Notre Dame-bound All-American midfielder, Eric Keppeler, to a season-ending hamstring injury.
Reed dressed Keppeler in the senior's No. 5 jersey for the game.
"You've got to play four quarters. You've got to play against guys that check hard. You've got to play against guys who hit," Reed said. "Our goal is not only to win the state championship, but to be one of the top programs in the state. And in order to do that, you've got to play the best teams that you can."
The Lions began the year by avenging the loss to Robinson before losing to Boys Latin, 14-10. The Lions routed last year's Class 3A-2A state runner-up, Fallston, to win that school's Invitational Tournament -- one in which they fell to two-time MIAA B Conference champion, Archbishop Curley, a year earlier.
Against a county rival Catonsville squad which Reed called that school's "best team probably in decades," the Lions were victorious three times -- in the regular season, the county title game, and in their Class 4A-3A South Regional championship matchup.
During the regular-season, the Lions vanquished county rival and eventual Class 3A-2A state titlist, Hereford, by 8-3, and defeated county rival Towson in overtime.
The Lions also withstood another stiff challenge from Franklin, winning by a 7-6 margin whose score was the identical to that which by which Dulaney had lost to the Indians two years earlier in the county title game.
In this year's semifinals, the Lions avenged their loss to Wootton, 9-6, having lost, 9-7, the year before to the Patriots. And then, of course, the Lions reversed their earlier loss to Urbana by the identical score, improving on the scoring and patience issues which plagued their team in the closing moments of their earlier loss to the Hawks.
"I was at McDonogh, got to coach a couple of championship teams, including their first championship in about 60 years. One year, I got to coach my son to a championship which was pretty neat. And then, it worked out for me that I got to come back and coach my alma mater," Reed said.
"It's always good to come back to where you played. A lot of alumni have called me, kids that I played with have called me up and wished us luck today. A guy from Seattle, a guy from overseas -- they all called me up wishing us luck," Reed said. "It's kind of a special thing that you can't describe when you go back to the high school where you kind of helped to start the program," Reed said.
"The team I played with was the first team that was ever ranked in the top 10 at Dulaney," said Reed. "It's kind of neat to be able to coach these guys. And like Brad Ruzicka said, the seniors really stepped up."
Class 4A-3A state championship game.
Dulaney 8, Urbana 7
Dulaney 2 0 4 2 8
Urbana 1 1 3 2 7
Goals: D- Lehrer 4, Mann, Ruzicka, Martin, Yancheski. U- Oster 2, Bing 2, Dadd, Dutton-O'Hara, Patton. Assists: D- Martin 2, Yancheski, Roe. U- Thomas, Dadd, Oster. Saves: D- Williamson 13. U- Baker 8.
Half: 2-2.
Game played on April 25
Urbana 8, Dulaney 7
Urbana 0 5 2 1 8
Dulaney 3 0 2 2 7
Goals: U- Oster 5, Bing 2, Dutton-Ohara. D- Lehrer 3, Martin 2, Ruzicka 2. Assists: U- Thomas 2, Oster, Bing. Saves: U- Baker 13. D- Williamson 13
Half: 5-3, U