VC tops Pine Bush on senior night

By Mike Zummo
Posted 5/11/22

The Valley Central boys’ lacrosse team got off to a fast start, building an early lead, and then held off a third-quarter push to beat the Pine Bush Bushmen, 14-7, on Thursday night at Valley …

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VC tops Pine Bush on senior night

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The Valley Central boys’ lacrosse team got off to a fast start, building an early lead, and then held off a third-quarter push to beat the Pine Bush Bushmen, 14-7, on Thursday night at Valley Central High School.

Before the game, the Vikings honored their seniors. Kevin Acevedo led the senior class with five goals.

“It feels good,” Acevedo said. “I didn’t play last year, so to come out here and have my friends and get to score five goals tonight feels good. Everybody was watching, including my parents. I’d like to thank them.”

The win also clinched the Vikings’ berth in the Section 9 Class A tournament.

“Now, it’s all about what seed and whatnot with our games coming up,” Valley Central coach Tom Stoddard said. “We’ve just got to get better and get ready for our first-round playoff game.”

The Vikings jumped on the Bushmen immediately in the first minute as Dan Latimer and Jack Sherry scored a pair of goals in the first minute to take an immediate 2-0 lead. A pair of late first quarter goals by Connor Stafford, who finished with four goals and three assists gave the Vikings a 4-0 lead at the end of the first quarter.

The Vikings scored three more goals, including Acevedo’s first of the day to take a 7-0 lead before the Bushmen found the back of the cage.

“We were hoping to do that because we wanted to get everybody in,” Stoddard said. “Especially being Senior Night, we wanted to get all the guys in. So, I told them we’ve got to put points on the board early so we could do that.”

The Bushmen got on the board with 7:02 left in the second quarter on a goal by Terrence Coleman, but the Vikings answered about 50 seconds later on Gavin Starr’s goal. It looked as though the Vikings were about to take a 9-1 lead, but Colin Kinsley’s goal was disallowed because he was in the crease when he shot the ball.

Danny DeGroodt scored a late second-quarter goal to cut the Vikings’ lead to 8-2 at the end of the second quarter.

The Bushmen came out strong in the third quarter getting goals from Joseph Darrell and Alec Gorman to cut the Vikings’ lead to 8-4. Valley Central’s Kai Hew answered with a goal but the Bushmen answered with two goals by Alec Gorman to cut the Vikings’ lead to 9-6 with 3:29 left in the third quarter.

It was the closest the Bushmen had been to the Vikings since the first quarter.

“We were hyped, and we were feeling good,” Acevedo said. “But it got to our head or something and we let them score a couple. But we came back and doubled the score. Everybody had a couple of goals.”

The Vikings got back on track with three goals to finish the quarter with a 12-6 lead, heading into the final quarter. The Vikings lead by as many as eight after Acevedo’s fifth goal gave the Vikings a 14-6 lead.

“We just had to settle down on offense and stop transition,” Stoddard said. “Once we did that, we knew we’d be OK. And when we finally decided to do that, we looked good.”

In addition to Acevedo and Stafford, Starr finished with two goals and three assists. Hew finished with two goals and Bryson Antal had an assist. Cameron Prutzman made three saves in goals.

Gorman led Pine Bush with three goals and Darrell added two. DeGroodt and Coleman scored one each. Tyler Ostrom made three saves.

Pine Bush fell to 1-5 and the Vikings improved to 8-5.

“We’re getting better every day, and that’s what it’s all about,” Stoddard said. “Every day, we just got to get better and ultimately, it’s about making the playoffs and making a run there.”