In a Class 3A state lacrosse semifinal that featured superb defense, Towson’s was the most opportunistic in an 8-3 victory over Marriotts Ridge late Friday night.
The win advanced the Generals (14-3) to the state final next week where they will play Severna Park in a rematch of last year’s 3A final. Marriotts Ridge (11-6) falls in the state semifinals for the second straight season.
The game was delayed an hour and 45 minutes because of severe storms, but that didn’t stop the Generals from coming out strong.
Towson’s defense, which includes long poles Zach Manigiafico, Jack Newlan, Wyatt Langenberg, Colin Kosmides and John Kotula, and goalie Jackson Harris, made life miserable for the Mustangs offense, holding them to one goal in the first half when the Generals built a 5-1 lead.
“We are very grateful that our coaches did a great job on the scouting report,” Newlan said. “They drive all over the state, so when it comes down to the game plan we had for this game, we were one step ahead of them to run our zone defense, which has been doing great all year, as well as a great game by our goalie.”
In addition to forcing turnovers and getting turnovers on unforced errors, the Generals owned the ground ball advantage.
“Every time we call a time out, our defensive coach [Randy Dase] gives us a word and the big word he emphasized today was ground balls. So we made sure to get after it and get those ground balls,” Newlan said.
Towson held the Mustangs to only seven shots and two on goal in the first half.
“We take pride in our defense,” Towson coach Phil Rossetti said. “Our defensive coaches do an incredible job preparing them. We go in and out of certain looks based on what we see and the guys execute it. We are really big on just doing your jobs, not overplaying guys, sitting. We trust them, we trust our goalie in those situations and they executed tonight.”
Marriotts Ridge’s defense was stingy as well, led by William Schade, whose job was to guard leading scorer Hudson Arrup.
Arrup was held without a goal, but he did hand out two assists. The first one came on the game’s opening goal when he fed Alex Tyler (two goals, two assists) just over three minutes into the contest.
A forced turnover by Kotula and ground ball scoop by Newlan led to the second goal — a feed from Brennan Harris to Brody Donovan.
The first goal of the second quarter was set up by an interception from Tyler at midfield. He raced ahead of everyone and beat the goalie one-on-one for a 3-0 lead less than a minute into the second quarter.
“Our guys played hard. We played a lot of defense, we had trouble possessing the ball, so our guys definitely played a lot more defense than we probably would have wanted to,” Marriotts Ridge coach Matthew Richter said. “We had great senior leadership out there, so we didn’t give up, but it’s hard to score when you don’t have the ball. Towson played very well. They are a very strong team.”
The Mustangs finally got on the scoreboard with 10:30 left in the first half on a behind-the-back goal by Joshua Lindquist off a feed from Mason Machiran.
But any momentum was blown away on goals by Harris and Max Kosmides in the final three minutes of the half. Tyler assisted on both goals.
Marriotts Ridge came out inspired in the second half and pulled within three on a goal by Machiran, but a fast-break feed from Brody Donovan to Harris bumped the advantage back to four late in the quarter.
Machiran fed Shane Whalen for a score three minutes into the fourth quarter, but that was the final tally they would get. Arrup assisted Max Kosmides and Kosmides got an unassisted tally to earn his hat trick.
Rossetti wasn’t phased at all that his top goal scorer, Arrup, didn’t put one in the net.
“We talked about that at halftime,” Rossetti said. “They were sliding quick to Hudson, we knew they were going to slide quick to him and Hudson has great vision, so our second half we were focused more on Hudson creating plays, not necessarily scoring goals but being a playmaker back there and getting other guys involved and I thought that really paid dividends for us.”
Richter was aware of Arrup as well.
“I’m glad we limited certain people to certain numbers, but at the end of the day they had enough to get through and they had a lot of opportunities,” Richter said.
The loss ended a seven-game winning streak for the Mustangs.
“Holding Marriotts Ridge to three goals, I mean, that’s a solid team right there, so I’m just really proud of [the defense] and I’m proud of our offense for getting the shots to fall when we needed them,” Rossetti said.
Next up is a rematch the Generals have been waiting for a year.
“That feeling of losing in the state championship, that’s something that you don’t really forget and we’ve got a lot of guys who are feeling the same way as me,” Newlan said. “They didn’t forget last year’s loss and we’re coming this year fired up. We are ready.”
We know [Severna Park] is a great team and the goal was to get there, that was our number one goal this year, we checked all the boxes,” Rossetti said. “We wanted to win a county championship, we wanted to win the region and we wanted to get back to states and everything we want is still in from of us.”
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TOW — 2 3 1 2 — 8
MR— 0 1 1 1 — 3
Goals: Tow: Max Kosmides 3, Brennan Harris 2, Alex Tyler 2, Brody Donovan 1; MR: Joshua Lindquist 1, Mason Machiran 1, Shane Whalen 1; Assists: Tow: Hudson Arrup 2, Tyler 2, Donovan 1, Harris 1; MR: Machiran 2.
Saves: Tow: Jackson Harris, 4, MR: Tanner Moran 5.