Woodberry Forest cruises to win over Covenant

WOODBERRY — Disappointed by a 10-7 loss over the weekend to Bishop Ireton, the Woodberry lacrosse team came into Tuesday’s match against Covenant with something to prove.

“We got what we earned,” said Tigers coach Brian Hemming of the loss. “I think that was a great wake-up call. We said that from here on out we will play Woodberry lacrosse, which is fast, smart, hard, passionate and gutsy.”

It didn’t take long for Woodberry to find its stride. Up by just one goal in the beginning of the second quarter, the Tigers went on a tear to finish the game and pick up their first victory of the season, 15-3.

Woodberry (1-1) started the game playing patient lacrosse, but turned to its transition game in the second quarter and jumped out to a five-goal lead at the half.

“Once our offense starts moving fast and really quickly, almost immediately that opens up opportunities,” said Tigers attackmen Hatcher Williams. “We got shots right around the crease. Our attack unit — Griffin [Burke], Barrett [Deacon] and I — we’re aggressive all game and we ride hard.”

The Tigers’ scoring flurry that began in the second quarter carried into the third as Ryan Lesko continually won draws and his team had no trouble turning the offensive possessions into points.

Williams and Wesley Bobbitt combined to score seven goals for Woodberry, but the Tigers also had seven different players find the back of the net and a third of their goals were assisted.

“One of the things we always work on here is sharing the ball,” Hemming said. “This is not a one-on-one game. This isn’t one guy trying to run through five guys and score. This is a group of 33 guys who work hard with each other in practice and like playing with each other on the field.”

Luke Heinsohn scored two of the three Covenant goals.

Both goalkeepers earned their keep, with Covenant’s Phillip Lindenbaum facing 34 shots and coming up with 15 saves. On the other end, Peter Sisk came up with 16 saves on 29 shots for the Tigers.

For the first 15 minutes of the game, Covenant (3-1) appeared ready to weather the aggressive Woodberry attack.

However, turnovers and sloppy passing proved to be too much to overcome for the Eagles, especially in the last three quarters of the game.

“We played a great team and they did a great job,” said Covenant coach Dave Breslin. “But we just did not have anything today. We’re very disappointed — disappointed in the way things happened. It was like a snowball effect. Things started going down hill and we did not have the ability to get ourselves back up on our feet.”

After jumping out to a 3-0 start in the first week of the season, Covenant looked like a vastly different team.

However, as the Eagles try to make the transition to a VISAA Division I schedule, they know there are plenty of games left to apply the lessons they learned on Tuesday afternoon.

“We said in the huddle that we’re staying the course,” Breslin said. “This is a marathon, not a sprint. We’ve got a lot of lacrosse ahead of us and we will not feel sorry for ourselves. We’re going to work harder and become much better. We’ve got guys with great character and we’re going to learn a ton from this game.”

Covenant hosts Germantown on Thursday at 4:30 p.m.

Woodberry hosts Flint Hill on Friday at 4 p.m.