Two days after posting a narrow, gritty victory over visiting Manchester Valley in the 2A state quarterfinals, the Huntingtown High School boys lacrosse team suffered a tough 11-9 setback to Hereford in the 2A state semifinals on Friday afternoon at Paint Branch in Montgomery County.
In recent years, Huntingtown has come painstakingly close to attaining its first state lacrosse title and then bid farewell to numerous seniors who were instrumental in the team’s success. But this season the Hurricanes will graduate only four seniors, two of whom have committed to playing lacrosse in college, while returning a bulky 27 of the 31 players on the roster.
“There were a lot of tears after this loss today,” Huntingtown boys lacrosse coach Pete Kerwin said. “But, in many ways it was good to see. It showed how much the season meant and how much the loss hurt. I am so grateful to the four seniors and what they did. Their leadership and dedication really showed the underclassmen what it takes to succeed.”
Huntingtown (17-2) started the May 17 game in very promising fashion by scoring the only goal of the first quarter and the first goal of the second for an early 2-0 lead. Hereford (15-3) replied with two goals over the next four minutes to draw even and the Bulls forged their first lead of the game with less than three minutes remaining in the first half to take a modest 3-2 advantage into the intermission.
Huntingtown junior Landon Cawley notched his second goal of the game early in the third quarter to bring the Hurricanes even at 3-3, but the Bulls closed out the quarter on a prolonged 3-0 run with one goal each from Brenden Kittner, J.P. Revitte and Jordan Bush. Kittner scored on a power play, but Bush tallied with only five seconds left in the quarter.
Despite yielding the late goal in the waning seconds of the third quarter, Huntingtown kept things close in the early stages of the fourth quarter. Juniors Jackson Taylor and Brady Swann each scored once for the Hurricanes to trim the gap to 7-5, and later in the quarter Taylor and Swann each scored again in consecutive fashion to keep the deficit close at 9-7.
Hereford, however, gained some breathing room with under five minutes remaining when senior Cole Warner won the face-off draw, scooped up the loose ball then fired a shot past Hurricanes keeper Liam Clark (12 saves) then Revitte scored a minute later for the Bulls to push the advantage to 11-7 with under four minutes remaining.
“We just needed to do a better job hustling and scooping up ground balls,” Cawley said. “This game taught us that we just have to work that much harder to be ready for next season.”
Swann countered with a goal with just over two minutes remaining to trim the Hurricanes’ deficit to 11-8 then he notched another tally with 36 seconds remaining to keep Huntingtown’s faint hopes alive. But following Huntingtown’s final time out, Swann was denied on a point blank shot with 10 seconds remaining and the Bulls were able to exhaust the clock.
“It definitely hurts to be this close and have to walk off the field,” Swann said. “But we have a lot of guys coming back next year, so we’ll learn from our mistakes today and come back even stronger next season.”
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