Boys lacrosse: St. Viator pushes Lake Forest in sectional final but falls short
Tied 4-4 at halftime, No.2-seeded St. Viator was hoping to pull off the upset Friday afternoon to win the championship of the boys lacrosse sectional over top-seeded host Lake Forest.
The Lions (15-5) almost took a 5-4 lead just 30 seconds into the second half when Ryan Halprin's shot hit the right post. But the Scouts would take a 5-4 lead on Jimmy Rappel's goal from the right point with 9:07 left in the third quarter and they never trailed again as they posted an 8-5 victory to advance to the Conant supersectional Tuesday at 7 p.m. against Loyola Academy.
No. 2-ranked Lake Forest (20-3) showed some great passing before Ryan Milliman put home a shot past St. Viator goaltender Jack Hartman with under 10 minutes to play.
St. Viator junior Franco Caputo fired home a shot from long range past Lake Forest goalkeeper Augie Silver to cut the lead to 6-5 with 8:39 remaining.
But that would be the last time the Lions got on the scoreboard as Lake Forest's Brayden Thiergart scored on a close-range running goal from the left wing to boost the lead back to 7-5 with 6:01 to go.
"In the second half I feel like we were matching chances. We had three or four that we didn't convert when we had the chance and they did on theirs so I think it's a game that could have gone differently with a couple bounces here and there," said St. Viator coach Geoff Harty, whose team was ranked third in the state.
"I'm really proud of the way they played. He (Hartman) was phenomenal all game long, and he had a couple of really big saves in the second half that kept us in it."
The Scouts added an insurance goal from Lucas Kroner (2 goals) with 2:50 to play before Silver stopped a shot on goal by St. Viator's Emerson McGrath with 1:10 left.
"Overall it was a game of possessions particularly in the second half, and we did a good job on offense scoring when we had to," said Lake Forest coach David Hone, whose team beat the Lions 9-3 on May 4.
"Despite some unforced errors on us, we managed to hold them to zero goals (in the third quarter) and we managed one goal so that was very important. I'm very happy with the performance overall. That is an excellent team in St. Viator up and down the lineup especially that faceoff player (Michael Tauscher) did a good job."
McGrath scored the first of his 2 goals for an early 1-0 lead before Jack Walsh's goal tied the score at 1-1. Halprin and teammate Wes Starr also had a first-half goals for St. Viator while Graham Garrigan had a goal for Lake Forest.