Boys lacrosse: Defense keys St. Francis triumph vs. ICCP

The St. Francis boys lacrosse team had two problems Monday night in its matchup with IC Catholic Prep.

First, the Spartans had to deal with the Knights' ultra-quick senior Charlie O'Brien, the team's leading scorer. But they also had to account for the absence of one of their top scoring threats, senior midfielder Sam Sidari.

Consider both problems solved.

St. Francis used a tough defensive stance that held the Knights scoreless for more than 34 minutes, then held on late to prevail 6-4 to improve to 8-3 overall.

"We all base our defense off of talking to each other and being one big group as a whole," said senior defender Quin Kubiak, "talking to the attackmen, get the ball up there, and then just talk on slides and everything of that nature to get it up and get them out of the center of the field and push them to the crease."

O'Brien tallied with 4:32 left in the first quarter to give ICCP a 2-0 lead, and it looked like the Knights might just be on the cusp of blowing the game open.

But then, the Spartans defense stiffened. The next goal the Knights scored was by O'Brien with 5:55 left in the game. That's right - no goals in the second or third quarters and more than half of the fourth.

"We kind of talked about it in the huddle, trying to keep the fourth (quarter) like the third, have them scoreless," said Spartans senior long-stick midfielder Daniel Dickerson. He was quick to give credit to senior goalie Matt Gabriel, who finished with 9 saves, facing 27 ICCP shots.

"I think we owe it all to Gabe in the cage," Dickerson said. "We played decent defense on the field, but he shut them down in the cage and didn't let anything get to the net, so I think we owe it all to him."

It did get interesting late. After O'Brien's fourth-quarter goal and a counterpunch goal by St. Francis senior attackman Zach Kinnas at 2:47, Knights senior Gabe Remy won the faceoff and promptly came down the field and scored with 2:36 to cut the deficit to 6-4.

But the defense held on tight and ensured that was the final score.

"Defensively the kids have done well," said St. Francis coach Bob Grisanzio. "Daniel Dickerson, our LSM, is just ungodly sometimes. He's just a groundball machine. He helps us keep possession at the midfield, and that's important, winning groundballs."

Of course, St. Francis did enough offensively to win, getting goals from five players in the first half, including one from Kinnas, to take a 5-2 lead into halftime. But the Spartans didn't score in the third quarter, either, leaving Grisanzio to lament that "we struggle finishing."

"We just fell asleep for a little bit," O'Brien said. "We came out hot but then not scoring for basically three quarters was a little rough. But we did stick with it the whole time, and hats off to our defense, probably the best defensive game we played all year. It felt like we never gave up."

ICCP (2-5), playing an independent schedule this season, won the faceoff battle 10-2 but turned the ball over 19 times, one more than St. Francis. Junior goalie Ryan Kenneally had 6 saves.