On Friday March 15th, the Boys JV lacrosse team faced rival Campolindo HS on Cougar turf. The game started fast with Campo winning the first face-off and taking a shot 11 seconds into play. But, it was saved by legendary Acalanes goalie #99 Luke Spinelli. Acalanes then seemed to take control. #6 Mason Lanphere took the first Acalanes shot at 10:07 and scored the first goal of the game; 1-0. #23 Luke Dafferner was up next with an impressive shot that narrowly missed. #19 Andrew Iams took the next Acalanes shot, but it was saved by Campo’s goalie. Campolindo #24 scored their first goal of the game at 4:05 in the first quarter; 1-1. The tied score fired up Acalanes and they went on to score two more goals in the first quarter – Iams at 2:06 with a fast follow by #13 Logan Houston; 3-1.
Starting the 2nd quarter down by two, Campo came out strong and scored a goal 30 seconds into play and another only 30 seconds later to once again tie it up; 3-3. However, Acalanes turned it around with a strong goal by #84 Anthony Quinn at 7:25; 4-3. Campo then took control and scored within only a minute of ours; 4-4. With Campo gaining momentum, Acalanes took a time out to strategize. When play started again, Quinn got his second goal at 1:55; 5-4. Acalanes didn’t let up with Dafferner scoring with only 23 seconds left in the first half; 6-4.
Acalanes was feeling good going into the 2nd half with an impressive lead, but Campo managed to score at 11:33; 6-5. The Campo offensive was on fire, making shots that the Dons managed to defend. At 5:58, Quinn got the ball after a ground tussle and scored his hat-trick goal at 4:10; 7-5. Then Campo started an offensive focus with shots by #3, #10 and #24. All missed or saved by Acalanes. #16 Jackson Tseng added a goal for Acalanes; 8-5 and Campolindo added their own goal; 8-6.
4th quarter started tense with a running clock as the ref needed to keep the game moving. The Dons got off to a good start when Houston scored his second goal at 11:09; 9-6. Campo followed up with a goal of their own by their #24 at 9:08; 9-7. Campo was once again on the offensive with possession and shots, which resulted in another Cougar goal at 8:04 by #3; 9-8. With the pressure on, the Dons managed to shift it a bit when Lanphere took a shot at 6:10, but it did not land in the net. The Acalanes defense was on alert as #46 Emerson Boudreau got the ball away from Campo. This led to another Acalanes attack where Iams took the shot, but it was saved by the Campo goalie. Tseng and Iams did manage to each add their second goals to remain above Campo also scoring one more goal; 11-9. When Campo got possession with less than 2 minutes left, Acalanes was up by only 2 points. Campo managed to take shot after shot, which thankfully either missed or were saved by Spinelli. So, as the horn sounded the end of the game, it remained Dons 11 versus the Cougars 9.
A clean game with well-matched teams, no penalties called.
