WORTON — Senior Ethan Clark and his Kent County High School classmates are getting another shot at a region championship in lacrosse before they graduate later this month.
Clark made sure of that Thursday, May 8 when he scored five goals to lead KCHS to a 16-1 rout of winless North Dorchester in the Class 1A East Region II semifinal round. [This is the first year for lacrosse as a varsity sport at North Dorchester.]
Jack Fry, Peter Sine and Quinten Joiner each contributed two goals for the winners, while Brett Devary, Stewart Hickman, Colin Fry, Gabe Parr and Aiden Ruiz Velazquez also found the back of the net.
David Daniels and Alex Harris split time in the cage and were rarely tested. Collectively, they had only one save.
The Trojans won for the fourth game in five tries to improve to 5-8.
Next up for KCHS is the title tilt Monday at home at 6 p.m. against Cambridge-South Dorchester.
Kent County is returning to the region final for the second year in a row.
Clark, Jack Fry and Daniels were juniors on last year’s 7-7 team — also the top seed — that lost at home to Southern of Anne Arundel in the region final, 17-7.
Southern (3-10) lost out on its bid to repeat, dropping a 9-7 decision to Cambridge in the other semifinal.
Cambridge (4-7) defeated Kent County midway through the regular season, 10-3.
“We know Cambridge is going to come up here with a lot of confidence having won that first game. They are well coached and they’ll be ready to play,” KCHS coach Ben Joiner told The Evening Enterprise in a text message.
“But I’m so glad that our guys get another shot at that team,” said Joiner ’95, the first-year head coach at his alma mater.
He said the rematch with Cambridge is “another opportunity for us to show the rest of the region that we’ve got what it takes to play tough, play disciplined and win games in the postseason.”
Joiner said Kent County played two games this season where he felt the final score was not an accurate reflection of the matchup.
The Cambridge game on April 14 was one of those games.
Joiner said the Vikings were tough and athletic, “and as a coaching staff we hadn’t prepared our guys well enough, particularly on the offensive side of the field.”
KCHS had not spent any time practicing an offense that would be effective against Cambridge’s zone defense, according to Joiner.
Since then, Joiner said, “we’ve seen a few teams that have used a similar zone scheme and we’ve worked on our zone offense regularly in practice.”
Joiner said the Trojans also have improved off the ball and with their slides on defense.
Overall, Joiner believes KCHS is a much better team than it was a month ago.
“We are much more effective in the middle of the field now, our clearing game has come leaps and bounds from earlier in the season, and we are physically and mentally tougher,” Joiner told The Evening Enterprise.
Also, by playing its semifinal game on Thursday, while Cambridge didn’t play until Friday, KCHS had an extra day of practice.
