Top Lax Recruits
Top Lax Recruits -
By Chris Goldberg
TopLaxRecruits.com, Posted 7/9/17
FT. WASHINGTON, Pa. – It wasn’t like Patriot (N.J.) hadn’t been forced to make a comeback once before this weekend.
In fact, just in the semifinals an hour earlier, Patriot rallied from a two-goal deficit with just 2 minutes to play and defeated Duke’s Elite, 5-4. So when Orange Crush scored three straight goals to take a 4-3 lead in the 2020 A championship today at the Liberty Bell Challenge at Germantown Academy, it was just time for another Patriot comeback.
So Thomas Jepson (Delbarton) scored his second to tie it on an EMO and then fed Charles Niebuhr (Delaware Valley) in transition for the go-ahead goal late in the game to win it. The play was set up by Owen Tarnowski (Roxbury).
“I think its our third tournament of the year and we just keep getting better and better,” said Tarnowski. “This week we clicked and we didn’t stop. We would get down by 2 or 3, but we kept moving. We’ve been here before. We just kept pushing; you have nothing to lose when you get to the championship game.”
In the semis, LSM Travis Alderton scored the tying and winning goals for Patriot. The momentum carried over into the finale as Patriot seized a 3-1 lead on a goal by Tarnowski early in the second half.
Orange Crush then took over the game’s momentum with three goals by Zachary Delaney (Bishop Ludden), Ncholas Wamp (Skaneateles) and Matthew Kemmis (Jamesville-DeWitt).
“In past tournaments we haven’t been able to win that first game on Sunday,” said Jepson, who had two goals. “Today we broke those bad habits. We got on a roll. I have been on the team three years and this is our second championship; it feels nice.”
The tournament drew more than 100 coaches, many of whom lined the fields for the championship games. Now that coaches cannot contact prospective recruits until Sept. 1 of their junior year, the 2020s can play lacrosse and not feel the crazy pressures of performing before college coaches.
‘I like it because some players have already committed and we may end up being better than them when we are older,’ said Tarnowski, a well-sized middie.
Jepson, an attackman, agreed; “It gives us time to just grow in the game. I like it.”
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