The Menlo varsity boys lacrosse team defeated Stevenson 10-6 in an out-of-league game on Saturday, April 27.
Despite a rocky fourth quarter where the Pirates went on a four-goal run in less than three minutes, the Knights’ 7-1 halftime lead kept them ahead. Sophomores Palmer Riley and Tyler Hinkie led in scoring with four and three goals, respectively. The strong sophomore class didn’t stop on the attacking side. Sophomore goalie Benjamin Chock saved eight shots and his triplet, Jacob Chock, added a goal as a defender.
Head coach Blake Kim believes the team played well for the majority of the game but lost focus for part of the fourth quarter. “Of 48 minutes of lacrosse, I think we played about 40 minutes of really good lacrosse,” Kim said. However, according to Kim, the team was able to halt Stevenson’s fourth-quarter momentum after he called a timeout. “When I called a timeout with three minutes left, I wasn’t very happy and they were able to channel that into just stopping the scoring.”
Kim believes senior Brady Jung was a valuable asset to the team despite not feeling well. Jung took the face-off for the Knights and added one goal. “Brady was under the weather and you wouldn’t have known it,” Kim said.
Senior Beckett Knuff also stood out for Kim in the midfield and on defense. “The only thing that makes me feel anxious in the game about him is when he looks gassed because we just need him out there,” Kim said. “He just creates so much turmoil and is a vacuum on ground balls.”
Additionally, according to Kim, junior Tyler Fernandez played lockdown defense on Stevenson’s Division I commit, allowing him to score only one goal. “He did exactly what we told him to do in the scouting report,” Kim said. “Everyone knew that we gave him the biggest assignment and he came through with it.”
The team currently sits at 4-9 and will face Bellarmine on Tuesday, April 30, in the West Catholic Athletic League first-round playoffs. The team is currently ranked fifth in the WCAL and 13th in CCS, for which playoffs begin the week of May 6.
Junior captain James Wernikoff, who had one goal and one assist in the game, believes the team needs to work on the fundamentals going into the playoffs. “We need to sharpen up our passing, catching, shooting, physicality, just going back to the basics,” Wernikoff said.
With the JV game against Stevenson being canceled, several JV players were called up before playoffs to play with varsity. “We’ve got a great group of promoted JV guys. So we’re really excited about adding some depth,” Kim said. “But we’ve got to get them up to speed with what we’re doing, with our offense in particular.” Kim hopes to ease the intimidation the JV players may have about playing with varsity.
Heading into playoffs, Kim believes the main things the team needs to focus on are staying healthy and playing as much of the 48-minute game at the highest level of lacrosse that they can.
