Two hundred fifty-two miles from Oakland Ave., the Rockhurst high school lacrosse team had their eyes set on a hot SLUH team, coming off a statement win over CBC. Rockhurst was feeling good on the drive over as late season injuries were beginning to a the Jr. Bills. 

Meanwhile, back at SLUH, practice that week began as normal until a shooting drill sidelined both goalies, juniors Ian Erker and Will Barnidge, with serious thumb injuries. Coach Andrew Toussaint had options, but neither looked appealing with two games on the horizon: Call up a goalie from JV or look internally for a substitute. 

Toussaint chose the latter and senior attackman Jack Andrews had   four days to play a position he had never played before.  

“I don’t know what it was but playing goalie was natural for me. It was something I always wanted  to do. It just felt right,” said Andrews.  

Friday arrived. Rain in the forecast threatened to cancel the boute, but the sky cleared in time.  Maybe it would have been better if the thunderstorms did show up, though, because even though Barnidge was cleared right before the match, Rockhurst came to embarrass SLUH.

In the first half, Rockhurst took a 9-1 lead, exposing the Jr. Bills in all three phases. SLUH’s one goal, coming from senior Ted Leritz on a beautiful spin move to the goal, was the only bright spot of the half.

Things did not turn around in the second half. Rockhurst scored six more goals in the third quarter. When it rains it pours for SLUH; the culmination of the night was an own goal for sophomore Ben Ortmann. The final was 17-4 Rockhurst with garbage time goals from sophomore Josh Bertram and two from senior Nick Witcher. 

SLUH needed a short memory because 18 hours later, Eureka hoped to do just what Rockhurst had done. Eureka, the state semifinalist in 2019, had recently been enjoying more success than any other public school in the area. To add onto this, Barnidge injured his knee in the Rockhurst game, and Erker was still not available. It was Jack Andrews who, after five days of playing the position, got the start in net. 

Deja vu set in immediately. Late slides, missing passes, and a lack of offensive production cratered the Jr. Bills into a 4-0 deficit. SLUH got on the board with one minute left in the first quarter because of junior Kalil Turner, who took advantage of his increased role in the rotation. The message at the end of the quarter was clear. 

“They might out physical us but we have to play better fundamental lacrosse,” said coach Scott Casey. 

SLUH knew what needed to be done, but an errant pass from Andrews let Eureka go up by four again. The offense knew they had to make up for the inexperience in net and junior Walter Hurley stepped up and scored thanks in part to senior Michael Tramelli who assisted the goal. 

Junior Michael Robinson had himself a day doing faceoffs, and with faceoff starter Louis Kertz absent, Robinson shined. After the Hurley goal, he won the faceoff and fed the ball to the attack on a fastbreak. Textbook ball movement ended with Leritz feeding Witcher for a wide open goal.  

SLUH began to make similar mistakes later in the game, though, and Eureka took advantage, scoring three in a row. Senior Jack Christanell broke Eureka’s streak, using his speed to get his own fast break and scoring on a sidearm shot. Despite glimpses of good fundamental lacrosse beginning to show, SLUH was still down four heading into the locker room at halftime. 

SLUH struck early in the third. Junior Dan Campbell set the tone, ripping it into the back of the net while simultaneously getting rocked to the ground. Leritz followed Campbell’s lead, notching another tally on the board to cut Eureka’s lead to two. 

Lacrosse, however, is a game of runs and Eureka scored three straight goals for the third time that day. Robinson, gassed from taking every rep, began to lose momentum. The defense knew they had to make a statement stop to stay in the game. Captain and Rockhurst lacrosse commit Cullen Swiecicki deflected a Eureka pass and got the ball to the offense, which was able to set up a play to feed senior PJ Haefer at the crease for a goal. 

Campbell followed with his second goal of the day, split dodging and making his defender fall onto the ground while scoring an easy one. Eureka scored after a faceoff win, and SLUH could not let another streak happen because of the limited time on the clock. Hurley stepped up big, scoring two straight by himself, first from a feed from Witcher and then, on the next possession, tossing the ball in off a rebound. 

With only a few minutes left, SLUH found themselves down two goals. Was it too little too late? Leritz didn’t think so. After a Eureka penalty, SLUH was a man up and Leritz ripped one in top right. SLUH brought it to a one goal game for the first time since the first quarter. 

With less than a minute to go, Eureka had the ball and things looked grim. However, the fortitude of the defense caused a turnover and sophomore Marco Sansone brought out his inner quarterback and launched the ball 70 yards into the stick of Nick Witcher. Toussaint called a quick timeout to organize the players. With only ten seconds left, he knew he had to rely on the seniors, who have been such an important part of the team all season long. Out of the timeout, Witcher started with it, ran behind the goal, and fed Leritz the ball. Leritz spun and with two seconds left got the ball past the goalie. The game was headed to overtime. 

Five minutes were put on the clock. Next goal wins. Robinson, who had just thrown up on the sideline from exhaustion, went out and won the opening faceoff. After a long possession, Eureka’s defense stood their ground. SLUH’s defense followed and a big save from Andrews gave the Jr. Bills more opportunities. Unfortunately, the offense was not as effective as before and time expired with the scoreboard unchanged. The two teams were off to double overtime. 

Both sides were drained. Intense humidity coupled with 55 minutes of lacrosse leads to some ugly play. Both sides were just trying to put shots on goal and seeing if any would happen to go in. A lot of bad shots mixed with turnovers made a third overtime seem all too possible. However, after a missed shot, Leritz got the ball on the endline. “Go to your left! Go to your left!” yelled a frantic Toussaint. Whether Leritz heard his coach or not, Leritz did indeed go left. He ran past his defender with ease and since he scored the last two SLUH goals, the attention was on him. Three Eureka defenders ran straight towards him, which gave way for Hurley to backdoor cut right and plant himself in front of the goal. Leritz saw him, made a perfect pass, and Hurley did the rest. The Jr. Bills won. Leritz fell to the ground in relief and Hurley celebrated with his team. 

“The moment was unreal. But to be frank, the first thing I thought of after scoring the goal was to bring it up on Jack Andrews. He took one for the team with both goalies out and stepped in net and we won the game thanks to that,” said Hurley.