By RICHIE HALL
CARMEL – The Carmel and Hamilton Southeastern boys lacrosse teams met Friday night at the Greyhounds’ Brian Murray Stadium in a regular-season game that had a state finals atmosphere.
Carmel and Southeastern played for last year’s Class 2A state championship, with the Royals coming back to win. Southeastern tried to make another comeback on the Greyhounds Friday, but Carmel held on for a 10-9 victory in an exciting, wild home game.
“We know that’s a good team over there,” said ‘Hounds coach Keith Allen. “They’re well coached. They got a bunch of great players. We think we have some quality players, too. We just said, ‘One at a time. You can’t score three goals at once, so you just got to eat it one bite at a time.”
The Royals got the first taste, as Max Kemp scored the game’s opening goal at the 10:16 mark. Carmel went on a feast after that, putting in five consecutive goals to dominate the first quarter. Ike Stitle scored two of those goals, with Cohen Odle assisting the second score. Brady Bischoff, Evan Coulter and Henry Dvorak also scored; Elias Chapa assisted Dvorak’s goal.
Southeastern turned things around in the second period, working its way back to tie the game at 7-7 by halftime. Marcus Laux scored an early goal off an assist from Dillon O’Rourke, then Kyle Jenkins found the back of the net with 9:33 left in the half.
Carmel answered that goal immediately, as Alexander Hall scored at the 9:24 mark. Jenkins put in his second goal 44 seconds later, assisted by Jake Kuxhausen. Stitle then got his third goal of the game a minute later, off a Coulter assist.
That gave the ‘Hounds a 7-4 lead, but Southeastern took over. O’Rourke scored at the 5:10 mark, then Kemp put in a goal 10 seconds later, with Weber on the assist. Kemp tied the game with 2:22 left, and the score was even at the break.
The Greyhounds had several opportunities during the third quarter and finally broke through at the 3:56 mark when Coulter put in the go-ahead goal. Jake Whipple scored with under a minute left, assisted by Brock Rose, and Carmel entered the fourth period ahead 9-7.
The Royals tied the game again with two lightning-fast goals. David Gould scored with 7:24 left, assisted by Ben Speckman, then Weber put in a goal seven seconds later. The Greyhounds got the game-winner with 6:05 left, as Stitle scored his fourth goal of the game.
“We tried to slow down their breaks,” said Allen. “They’re a big, fast team. They made some adjustments on our offense also, so their defense came out and played a great second half. We matched them up pretty well.”
Hall had a solid defensive game, totaling seven ground balls. Weber collected eight ground balls for HSE, while O’Rourke had three forced turnovers in addition to four ground balls.
“First of all, hats off to Carmel,” said Royals coach Scott Beesley. “I thought they had a great game plan. I thought they executed guys it well.” At the same time, he thought there were times “where we beat ourselves.”
Southeastern is 11-4, but this was its first loss to an Indiana team.
“We’re just trying to make sure that we continue to put our best foot forward and honestly, continue to be confident in who we are, both individually and collectively as a team.”
Carmel is 10-2 and hosts Culver Academies this morning at 11:30 a.m. The Royals return to action next Friday at Zionsville.
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