By RICHIE HALL
NOBLESVILLE – An all-county boys lacrosse game went Hamilton Southeastern’s way on Wednesday.
The Royals played at Guerin Catholic and won 14-1. Southeastern scored its first goal right away, with John Pauls scoring off an assist from Max Kemp just 44 seconds into the contest.
The Royals put in five goals in both the first and second quarters, leading to a 10-0 advantage by halftime. Southeastern’s four other first-quarter goals were unassisted: Kyle Perkins found the back of the net, followed by Kemp. Pauls added his second goal, then David Gould scored with 16 seconds left in the period.
Kemp provided more offense in the second quarter, scoring twice and assisting with two other goals. Both of those assists came on quick goals during the last 23 seconds of the half; Pauls scored, then Gould scored just nine seconds later.
Pauls assisted Kemp’s second goal of the half, while Nicholas Weber also got a second-quarter score.
“Really proud of how we battled the faceoff X,” said Southeastern coach Scott Beesley. “Nick Weber’s a junior for us and has done a really good job of controlling the tempo of the games by the way he wins faceoffs, so I really thought 16 had a tremendous effort for us tonight.
“Then offensively, I thought we were really patient when we the ball. I didn’t think we tried to rush any shots. We really valued possessions and shared the ball very well as a team.”
Trey Boysen scored at the 3:36 mark of the third quarter. Kemp assisted that one, and then he scored his fourth goal of the game with 17 seconds left in the period.
Ethan Ducey added the Royals’ 13th goal of the game with 7:44 left in the fourth quarter, then Lukas Kress finished the HSE scoring with 1:40 left. Both goals were assisted by Kemp, giving him six for the game in addition to four of his own goals.
“We’re a pretty young team on offense,” said Beesley, whose team is now 5-0 for the season. “We’ve got some great senior leaders on defense, so it’s fun to see the offense clicking this early in the season. I thought we were going to have a few more growing pains than we’ve had. Team’s really bonded really well, both on and off the field. We’ve done a lot of things off the field to try to build the chemistry.”
Evan Bair scored for the Golden Eagles with 3:01 left in the first quarter.
Kress led Southeastern’s ground ball total with six, followed by five each for Pauls and Weber. Pauls also had five caused turnovers, while Brody Carlson had three caused turnovers. Luke Sell had four ground balls for Guerin Catholic.
“Kudos to HSE,” said Golden Eagles coach Charlie Barry, who noted that the Royals are last year’s Class 2A state runner-up. “They’ve been in that conversation for a long time, and they just got a bunch of dogs, man. They got a bunch of kids that can play. They’re ranked in the Midwest and it’s tough.”
The Royals are off for Spring Break, returning to action Friday, April 12 against Olentangy Liberty (Ohio). Guerin Catholic plays at Roncalli on Saturday.