SPREADING THE WEALTH: Catonsville's Matt Reymann (above) had five assists and scored twice in Thursday night's 16-8 victory over Centennial. "We came out ready to play. We came out with a lot of power and will," said Reymann. "With that, I think we played a pretty crisp game."
Catonsville's Skippy Clary (above, No. 9) scored twice and keyed the Comets' 17-5 advantage in faceoffs in Thursday night's 17-5 victory over Centennial.
(See video highlights and interviews below)
With eight starters returning from a squad that had gone 13-4 and was last year's Class 3A-2A North Regional runner-up to Fallston of Harford County, Catonsville's lacrosse team began this season with high hopes.
The Comets opened with an 8-3 victory over last year's Class 2A-1A state champion, Winters Mill of Carroll County, a victory that raised their winning streak on their home field to nine games as part of a tougher schedule meant to challenge and prepare Catonsville for a run at the postseason.
But the Comets' next three games didn't go quite as well, starting with an 8-7 loss to visiting neighborhood rival, Mount St. Joseph of the Maryland Interscholastic Athletic Association's A Conference -- the Baltimore area's private school league.
That loss was followed by two more -- by 6-5, and, 9-5, respectively -- to MIAA A Conference stalwart Severn as well as Baltimore County rival Dulaney.
Suddenly, the Comets were staring at a 1-3 record.
"That was close to hurting us. You play Dulaney, Severn and St. Joe, and lose tough games like that, it tends to work on your confidence a little bit," said Comets' coach Jeff Mohler. "But we were able to get a couple of wins off, and we certainly have our confidence back now, and we're just trying to limit our mistakes. We're working on it and we're moving in the right direction.
The Comets' struggles appear to be behind them, however, judging by Thursday night's surprisingly one-sided, 16-8 victory over Howard County runner-up Centennial, which was their seventh consecutive win to improve to 8-3 on the year.
Matt Reymann scored twice and assisted on five other goals, and Ben Cohee scored once with three assists for the Comets, who led, 5-2, after the first quarter, 10-4 at the intermission, and, 14-7 entering the fourth.
"We came out ready to play. We came out with a lot of power, and a lot of will. And with that, I think we played a pretty crisp game," said Reymann, . "Everybody hit their roll, and we just went from there. And I think it's just a great way to kind of catapult us into the end of the season and into the playoffs."
Skippy Clary scored twice and keyed the Comets' 17-5 advantage in
faceoffs, and Micah Powell scored three goals and assisted on two
others -- his most productive game of the season.
"We've progressively been getting better. We just came off of a big win against Hereford on Tuesday," said Powell, referring to a 13-12 decision. "We just fed off of that, came out hard today and won a big one."
The win came over a Eagles' squad which lost, 7-6, last Friday to an unbeaten Glenelg squad which defeated Fallston for last year's Class 3A-2A state title.
"It think we're like day and night. We're really come a long way. Our offense has been starting to click," Reymann said. "I feel like we started off slow, but we're putting all of the pieces together and really starting to come together as a team. I feel like we can be pretty dangerous as we enter the end of the season."
Colin McNamara (two goals), Brian Sommer (two goals), Nikko Gurnsey (two goals), Trey Hunt (one goal) and defender Matt Tabler (one goal) were among the nine different contributors for the Comets, who wreaked havoc on the Eagles' goalie, Carl Suhrstet (eight saves).
Mike Bands, Tabler, Everhart, Gurnsey and Clary hustled for ground balls.
"It started with the faceoffs and groundballs. I thought our faceoff guys did a good job," said Mohler. "And our offense is really starting to get a nice flow to it. We're just starting to gell, and it's coming at the right time."
Clary's controll in the midfield keyed several big transition goals.
"On my scoop shot, I've got Dillon Paice, and he's just an animal over there. I just scoop it out, and he holds his guy out or comes and gets the ball," said Clary, who keyed a five-goal run for an 8-2 lead, scoring the Comets' goals that made it 5-2 at the end of the first quarter, and, 8-2, at 9:02 of the second.
"On the other side, I've got Micah or Colin, and they just get in there and fight for it when I can't get the scoop," Clary said. "Just hustling. We get turnovers, bring it down and their not back with us, then we got some nice goals out of that."
The Comets received yeoman efforts from defenders Matt Tran and Matt Everhart, respectively, on the playmakers for the Eagles (7-4) in Harrison Chaires (three goals, one assist) and Shane Jaeger (one goal)
"Coach told me basically what hand [Jaeger] like to go with. But you saw that he got me on the first play but we shut him down after that," said Everhart, who limited Jaeger to only the Eagles' first goal to make it 2-1.
"Matt Tran was on Chaires, and we were trying to shut him off because when he gets the ball, he's deadly. And Matt Tran hasn't started all year," said Mohler. "But Matt, as a senior, had to step up. And as a first assignment, that's a pretty tough assignment. Chaires is always going to get his, but Matt did a very nice job."
Tran was making his first start of the season against Chaires, who assisted on Centennial's fourth goal by Matt Bloom to bring the Eagles within 8-4 midway through the second quarter, and later scored their sixth, seventh and eighth to get his team within, 10-6, 10-7, and, 16-8.
"We came out against a really good Catonsville team. We knew they were a really strong team. They were at home on their [artificial turf,] and you could definitely tell that they knew how to flick the ball on their turf compared to grass, and they played taht real well," Chaires said.
"They hustled for ground balls. They just out-played us," said Chaires, whose Eagles face league rival Reservoir on Friday night.
"They [Comets] were just pressuring us. You couldn't casually stand out on the side and receive the ball," Chaires said. "They would double-team you as soon as they got the opportunity. They made it real tough."
Greg Evans (one goal, one assist), Ryan Bourg and Easton Gallant scored once each, and Kyle Virtue had an assist for the Eagles.
"We had some issues, defensively, because Chaires and Jaeger are
phenomenal and extremely quick, and it's tough to match them
foot-for-foot, and we had a difficult time doing that," said Mohler, whose Comets visit Pikesville on Tuesday.
"But we started
sliding better, and our offense started getting some longer posessions,
and it was really a team effort," Mohler said. "They made a nice little
run, got it to 10-7, but we buckled down when we had to and got into
high gear and put it away."
Catonsville 16, Centennial 8
Centennial 2 2 3 1 8
Catonsville 5 5 4 2 16
Goals: CE- Chaires 3, Gallant, Evans, Bloom, Jaeger.
CA- Powell 3, Reymann 2, McNamara 2, Clary 2, Gurnsey 2, Sommer 2, Hunt, Tabler, Cohee.
Assists: CE- Evans, Chaires, Virtue.
CA- Reymann 5, Cohee 3, Powell 2.
Saves: CE- Suhrstedt 8.
CA- Gallina 5.
Half: 10-4, Catonsville.