The Whitesboro Warriors Lacrosse Team (4-6, 7-7) paid tribute to their graduating seniors at Chiz Frye Field in Whitesboro tonight and the visiting Fulton Red Raiders (1-9, 2-13) were hoping to spoil the festivities. The visitors ignored the fact that it was Senior Night and jumped out to a 6-2 halftime lead before Whitesboro settled down and pulled out the win.
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A huge crowd was on hand, under very pleasant weather conditions, as the two teams squared off and went right to work. Fulton's one-two punch of #18 Bobby Earnshaw and #16 Brett Williams struck quickly, as Earnshaw took consectuive passes from Williams and scored two quick goals to give the guys in red a 2-0 lead with 7:04 remaining in the first quarter.
Earnshaw and Williams have combined for 58 goals and 28 assists coming into tonight's game.
(Evan Manna with his mom and dad on Senior Night)
Red Raiders attack Cody Hogan made it 3-0 in favor of the visitors 2 minutes and 10 seconds into the second quarter, before the blue and white senior balloons even got inflated.
Whitesboro seniors Sam Girmonde and Chris Gibbs decided it was time to get the home crowd into it when Gibbs fed a streaking Girmonde who rifled a shot past Fulton goalie Eric Belair to pull the Warriors within 3-1 with 8:28 remaining in the half.
Warriors senior Alex Rukavena tallied his 21st goal of the season, six minutes later, to bring the home team to within 3-2 and bring the home crowd right back to full volume. Fulton's Jack Howard increased the Red Raiders lead to 4-2 at the 1:08 mark of the first half, which is the way the stanza would come to an end.
(Whitesboro's Evan Manna (32) badgers Fulton's Brett Williams (16) in early action.)
At the half, Whitesboro honored its seniors and their parents with a ceremony to pay respect to their hard work and dedication to Warriors lacrosse.
After the introduction of the senior players, Mike Schoen a recent MHTS / Adirondack Bank 12th Man Award recipient, was also honored by the Whitesboro lacrosse community for his years of service to Whitestown Youth.
Credit the pomp and circumstance, credit the balloon release, credit whatever you wish, for whatever reason, the Warriors came out of halftime with a vengeance. Just :42 seconds into the third quarter, Jake Manley pulled the Warriors to within 4-3 with his 6th goal of the season.
(Jake Manley with mom and dad.)
Less than a minute later, Joey
Schoen tied the game at 4-4 off a pass from Chris Gibbs and a flick of his quick wrists.
With the score even, Whitesboro's Kevin Flanagan and Austin Curtis tallied consecutive goals less than two minutes apart to put the Warriors up 6-4 over the stubborn Red Raiders, which is the way we'd head to the final stanza.
Kevin Flanagan scored his second goal of the game (12th of the season) just 1:47 into the fourth quarter to make it 7-4, before Fulton's Bobby Earnshaw scored his third goal to make it 7-5 with 8:22 to go in the game.
Joey Schoen then answered with perhaps the prettiest goal of the night, a 20 foot laser beam over Belair's right shoulder to increase the home club's advantage to 8-5.
(Whitesboro longstick Sean Flanagan (31) stands up Fulton's Bobby Earnshaw (18) during third quarter action.)
Schoen made it a hat trick and 9-5 Warriors when he took a lead pass from Dan Barry and beat Belair with 5:11 to go in the contest.
Fulton's Brett Meyers and Whitesboro's Chris Gibbs traded goals less than a minute apart in the fourth quarter, giving Whitesboro a 10-6 victory.
Whitesboro improves to (5-6) in the OHSL and (8-7) overall, while Fulton, which is much better than their record indicates, dropped to (1-10) in the league and (2-14).
Congratulations and best wishes to the graduating seniors of both clubs from My Hometown Sports.
(Joey Schoen (22) on the second half attack.)
Whitesboro 10 Fulton 6
Box Score
1 2 3 4 Total
Fulton 2 2 1 1 6
Whitesboro 0 2 4 4 10
