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Boys lacrosse: Waubonsie Valley/Metea Valley co-op gets the message against Marmion

At halftime Wednesday of his team's first home match of the season against Marmion, Waubonsie Valley/Metea Valley co-op boys lacrosse coach Chris Conner had his players doing pushups.

Usually that's a postgame activity. But this night he had a good reason - never mind the fact that his charges possessed a 7-1 lead at the time in the game played at Metea Valley.

"They had about probably 10 to 15 saves with the goalie on just regular shots, and we wanted to see some bounce shots," Conner said of the first half.

Mission accomplished. With that little bit of extra motivation, Valley executed three bounce-shot goals to start the third quarter en route to a 14-2 nonconference victory over the Cadets. Valley improved to 2-0.

"We weren't bouncing our shots," said senior midfielder Brenden Hennessy, who came off the bench to lead Valley with 5 goals. "They were either going straight to (the goalie's) stick or right to him, so we just needed to work on bouncing our shots more, and then they started falling in the second half, so I guess it worked."

But you were up 7-1. … A 6-goal differential. Doesn't that count for something?

"Coach has certain expectations for us, and if we aren't meeting those expectations, it doesn't matter what the score is up there," said Valley junior attackman Nick Asuan, who added 3 goals. "He's going to hold us responsible, and after those pushups, we picked it up a little bit and started running what we needed to."

And how. Hennessy already had a pair of goals but connected again with 10:03 left in the third quarter after about a minute of passing around the circumference of the goal, the ball hitting the ground before piercing the back of the net.

Asuan assisted on senior attackman Adam LaRocque's goal at 9:09 before doing the same on junior Julian Wlodarczyk's goal 41 seconds later. Suddenly, Valley was up 10-1 and en route to a running clock in the fourth quarter.

It never looked back.

Know what's even scarier? That offense should get even better with the addition of sophomore attackman Jake Cornwell, who's out with a concussion.

"Our offense right now is kind of clicking," Conner said. "It's only going to be improved. We're pretty excited right now."

Waubonsie/Metea peppered Marmion netminder Michael Clohecy with 42 shots, including 14 in the first quarter, though to his credit Clohecy did save 21.

"Mickey is a junior and played JV last year, first year of varsity, he has a big heart, and he stands between the pipes and takes whatever comes to him," said Marmion coach Randy Clark, whose squad fell to 0-3. "He's a solid player."

It wasn't all bad news for the Cadets. They got a goal with 9:30 left in the first half from junior defender Miles Childers. Senior defender Ben Schwartz added Marmion's second goal with 2:06 left in the game.

"Work in progress," Clark said. "A lot of young players, getting some playing time and improving their skills."

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