Oakton boys make a statement
By Dave Buschenfeldt
It is often said that to be the best, a team has to beat the best. If that is the case, the Oakton boys lacrosse team made a strong statement to the rest of the Northern Region Friday night with a 9-5 win over two-time defending state champion Robinson.
The Cougars led 6-4 at halftime, then outscored their Concorde District rivals 3-0 over the final 17 minutes after the Rams pulled within a goal early in the third quarter.
“The Rams have come out strong against us the past couple years,” said senior Adam Kubiak, who scored two goals. “We needed to win this game to show the district what we're made of. We needed to come out strong. It was a big win.”
After Robinson took a 1-0 lead on a shot by junior Porter Lloyd, Kubiak scored his first goal to tie things up at 1-1. Senior James McClellan gave Oakton its first advantage 10 seconds later, and the Cougars never looked back.
Oakton took leads of 4-1 and 5-2 in the second quarter, and when the Rams pulled to within 5-4 with 55 second remaining in the first half, Cougars junior Nick Stevens tallied the first of his two goals seven seconds later to give his team a two-goal advantage at the break.
“We prepared well,” McClellan said. “Our defense held it down tonight. Our offense put it together. We usually rush things, but we settled it down and beat them at their own game.”
Rams senior captain Jonathan Kilbourn found the net to make the score 6-5 less than two minutes into the second half, but Stevens, McClellan and Kubiak each tallied another goal to increase Oakton's winning margin to four.
Cougars coach Tony Gray was pleased with his team's performance, but was quick to point out that this was only a regular-season game.
“Every time we play Robinson, we know it's going to be close,” he said. “We've got to make sure that we do it during the districts and the regions and states. We've been in this position where we beat them the first time, but when it really counted, they got the edge on us.”
Oakton improved to 6-3 overall with the win and 5-0 in district play, while Robinson fell to 5-5 overall, 3-2 in district play.