Northern boys lacrosse outlasts Leonardtown

Hours after the last remnants of the partial solar eclipse that graced the skies during the late afternoon, the Northern High School boys lacrosse team emerged with a gritty 12-8 victory over visiting Leonardtown on an evening when natural and manmade lighting garnered equal billing.

Northern (4-1) scored the first five goals of the game on Monday evening and still led by four goals at the intermission. But after the Raiders made things interesting in the second half to get within 10-8, Northern’s Brendan Fairwesaher sealed the verdict with a goal late in the fourth quarter and the host Patriots prevailed in a good early season Southern Maryland Athletic Conference clash.

“Leonardtown is a very good team, so we had to play with a lot of high energy right from the start,” said Northern coach D.J. Walker, whose team will face Calvert on Friday. “We had a really good first quarter and then we kind of let them get in our heads a little bit. But once the guys settled down and just went back to being patient and being smarter we were okay.”

Northern could not have asked for a better start to the game as Mathew Constatino scored less than three minutes into the game for a 1-0 lead and later in the opening period both Anthony Desantis and Josh Harrington tallied twice to give the hosts a 5-0 lead. Although he did not score in the first quarter, Tyler Fairweather played a key role with his ability to win most of the face-off draws.

“Tyler had a big impact on the game tonight for us,” said Desantis, who is going to bypass playing lacrosse in college to focus on becoming an electrician. “He won nearly all of the draws. That was a big confidence boost for us because we knew even if they scored we would likely get the next possession.”

Leonardtown finally got on the board just over two minutes into the second quarter on a goal from Reese Pullman off an assist from Robert Stailey. The Raiders trimmed the gap to 5-2 three minutes later on a goal from Garrett Reynolds then neither team scored again until the waning seconds of the first half when Brendan Fairweather ended the Patriots’ drought with a goal with five seconds left in the first half.

“Right before that goal I called a timeout [with 32 seconds left] and I told the guys we needed to get one before halftime,” Walker said. “We had a really good possession and Brendan got in close and took a great shot. We’ve already been in some tight games against really good teams. Even the game we lost [to Arundel] we had a four-goal lead and let that one get away.”