Spirit Rolls to Champion HSS Title Game

by Paul Krome | Lacrosse Magazine Online Staff

David Roby scored three goals to help Team Spirit cruise to a 22-6 win over Team Freedom. © Scott McCall

LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. – Team Spirit followed the right path from the Northeast, and they'll play for the gold medal in Central Florida.

Edward Redpath, a middie from the Taft School in Burlington, Vt., scored three first-half goals as Team Spirit jumped out to a 9-1 lead and cruised to a 22-6 win over Team Freedom in a matchup of unbeatens at the 2010 Champion High School Showcase (HSS), a four-team US Lacrosse all-star event at the ESPN Wide World of Sports Complex. US Lacrosse has brought lacrosse to the ESPN Rise Games, an annual multi-sport festival, for the first time with the HSS.

With both teams entering today with a 2-0 record, they were already assured of meeting in Thursday's gold-medal game, set for a 2 p.m. faceoff and ESPNU tape-delay broadcast at 7 p.m. July 25. But Team Freedom must be hoping for a different result after the blowout loss.

Redpath scored his three goals in the first quarter, including back-to-back markers midway through, as Team Spirit went up 7-1. He would later add an assist for four points on the day.

"It was one-sided, but our goalies played huge," said Redpath, bound for Bryant University in the fall. "We got a few key goals. A few bounces to the other team and it's a different game."

Robert Abbott (Bullis (Md.) School) boosted Spirit's cause with a 7-for-12 effort on faceoffs in the first half, which was anchored in goal by four saves from Spirit's Daniel Zenevitch (St. Peter Marian (Mass.) HS). David Roby's (Bishop Moore (Fla.) HS) second goal of the first half put Spirit up 9-1 before Freedom got goals from Reed Daniel (St. John's (Texas ) School) and Taylor Wisman (Inglemoor (Wash.) HS) to make it 9-3 at the half.

But Freedom got no closer than 11-4 in the second half. Spirit's Kyle Rebman (Baldwin (N.Y.) HS) and Chad Ellis (St. Charles North (Ill.) HS) also finished with four points each.

"Ed's got a quick first step; all his goals were off of dodges," Spirit coach Mark Howard said.

"Freedom has a lot of talent, too. They'll give us everything they have tomorrow, regardless of what happened today."

In today's other afternoon HSS game, Team Liberty got its first win, defeating winless Team Pride in overtime, 11-10. JoJo Milosevic (Palo Verde (Nev.) HS) converted a feed from Patrick Dougherty (St. Alban's (D.C.) School) at the 2:08 mark of overtime to deliver the win for Liberty, which surrendered a 9-6 lead in regulation.

Will Wise (Cohasset (Mass.) HS) tied it for Pride at the 3:39 mark of regulation, forcing OT.

Liberty's Alex Eaton (Bridgewater Raritan (N.J.) HS) led his team with three goals.

Team Freedom wrapped up its bid to the championship game with a 12-8 victory over Team Pride in the morning. Pride jumped out to an early 3-0 lead, but Freedom came back take a 6-5 lead at the half and then slowly took control of the game in the second half. Delaware recruit Greg Kelsic led Freedom with two goals and an assist and William Ward (Syracuse) and Thomas DeNapoli (Towson) each had two goals. Alexander Otero (Yale) also scored a goal and dominated faceoffs. Leading Team Pride was Joseph Slavik (Cortland) with three goals and an assist and Taylor Dean (Whittier) had a goal and two assists.

Team Spirit scored the first six goals of the game to dominate Team Liberty 16-4. Heralded North Carolina recruit Nick Galasso had three goals and five assists and Connor Mooney (Massachusetts) had four goals and two assists to lead Spirit. Douglas Tesoriero (Cornell) led Team Liberty with two goals.

Team Liberty will meet Team Pride again for the bronze medal at 10 a.m. Thursday.