Near miss for Stevenson in state semis
The Stevenson boys lacrosse team made a great showing in its first trip to the IHSLA state semifinals Thursday afternoon at Loyola Academy's Glenview campus.
The No. 3-seeded Patriots came up on the short end of a 7-6 score against the No. 2 Ramblers, but they almost made a trip to the state finals in a sport that will be on the IHSA schedule next spring.
Loyola (19-6) advances to the state title game Saturday at 4 p.m. at Oak Park-River Forest High School against No. 1 New Trier, which defeated No. 4 St. Charles East 11-6 in the other semifinal.
After losing to Loyola 16-4 in late March without all-American Matt Harris or senior teammate Tim Engel playing, Stevenson (18-3) led 5-4 Thursday when junior Adam Cook scored his second goal on an assist by senior teammate Jack Huber with 10:26 to play.
But Loyola really buckled down after that point with John Nigh tying the game with 9:06 remaining on a great pass from teammate Will Forsyth.
The Ramblers took the lead for good when Harry Clarke fired a shot from the right side into the left corner of the net and past Stevenson goalie Max Huber with 6:47 remaining.
Then Loyola added a key insurance goal with 4:03 to go as Dylan Harris assisted Brendan Dolan's goal for a 7-5 advantage.
The Patriots did respond with an under-handed shot by sophomore Brendan Sheehan cutting the gap to 7-6 with 2:48 to play.
But that was the final goal of the contest as the Ramblers were able to salt away the clock with the aid of two steals in the final 1:16.
"First and foremost, I give Stevenson a ton of credit and it was like night and day compared to our first game against them, and Matt (Harris) made a big difference for them," said Loyola coach Rob Snyder. "We had a couple of senior middies who stepped up and made a big difference in the end, and we got some good shots on their goalie."
After a scoreless first quarter, the Pats fell behind 1-0 on the first of 2 goals by Forsyth just 27 seconds into the second quarter.
Stevenson got on the scoreboard with 3:09 left in the first half as Jack Huber scored the first of his 2 unassisted goals in a span of 1:03.
Loyola scored with a one-man advantage with just 7.8 seconds left in the second quarter to deadlock the score at 2-2 at halftime.
The third quarter was also a dogfight with the Syracuse-bound Harris bolting down the middle of the field, putting a move on a defender and scoring an unassisted, short-handed goal for a 3-2 lead with about eight minutes left in the period.
Forsyth's second goal tied the game before the Ramblers went up 4-3 on Jack O'Donnell's goal.
A long outlet pass from Max Huber (22 saves) to Harris set up the Patriots' next goal as Harris passed to Engel, who passed to Cook for the goal and a 4-4 tie.
"I'm proud of them, they worked as hard as they could, and to lose by one goal to a great team like Loyola is nothing to be ashamed of," said Stevenson coach Brian Larsen, whose team had 11 seniors head straight for graduation ceremonies following the game. "These are two really good defenses so it was no surprise it was a low-scoring game. They executed man-up a little better than we did and that was probably the key to the game."