Defensive effort powers Downingtown East past Owen J. Roberts

UWCHLAN – Scoring goals is the most glamorous aspect of lacrosse, but truly great teams tend to rely on its defense to prevent opponents from scoring.

We don’t know yet if the Downingtown East boys will be able to follow up three straight conference crowns with a fourth this spring, but during Thursday’s 8-5 triumph over visiting Owen J. Roberts, the Cougars’ defensive unit was challenged and it certainly passed the test.

“As a team I thought we played well defensively,” said East’s first-year head coach Chris Layne. “We had some good stops there at the end. If we play together as a unit, the sky is the limit.”

Now 2-0 overall, the Cougars raced out to a 4-0 first quarter lead, but it was a slog the rest of the way. Senior Justin ‘Jutty’ Daubert wound up winning three-quarters of his faceoffs (12 of 16), and that gave the Wildcats (1-2 overall) the clear edge in possession time. That put extra pressure on East’s standout senior goaltender Brayden Quinn, and the rest of the D.

“Our defense played a hell of a game,” said junior attacker Keegan Kropp. “They caused a lot of turnovers and got us the ball.

“Brayden Quinn is an amazing goalkeeper. He is the leader in that end of the field, and it’s always nice to have that last line of defense.”

Seemingly in trouble, trailing 7-3 late in the third, Owen J. Roberts’ junior Brody Calle scored in the final seconds of the quarter and then added another early in the fourth to make it 7-5 with 10:50 to go. But that’s when Quinn and company killed off two man-down situations the rest of the way. With less than three minutes on the clock, Wildcats’ senior Dan Sbei had a shot clang off the far post.

“This team never quit and kept working,” said Owen J. Roberts’ head coach Kevin Mo. “We challenged them at halftime and I think they responded pretty well.”

East closed it out when senior Brayden Phillips found Kropp for an insurance goal with 74 seconds remaining.

“It just comes down to coming out hotter in the second half. It’s just a matter of finishing opportunities and — long story short — wanting it more,” Kropp said.

“Offensively, six-on-six looks good when we are moving the ball around and playing together and finishing shots,” Layne added. “We definitely have things we need to correct, but when we are on the same page, we can compete with anybody.”

Phillips opened the scoring and Kropp made it 2-0 heading into the second quarter. And when Phillips and Jake Javadpour added goals in the first five minutes of the second, it was 4-0. The Cougars had a similar start in their opener, a 10-5 win over Central Bucks East.

“In both of our games we’ve started out fast, but we need to be more consistent throughout the whole game,” Layne pointed out. “If we can play four quarters like we did to start today, it would be impressive. We definitely need to be better shooting and finishing.”

Daniel Walker finally put the Wildcats on the board to make it 4-1 at the half. Calle dominated the third period for Owen J. Roberts with two more goals and an assist to teammate Owen Clafisch.

“It’s always good to play against teams of this caliber – hopefully in the future we can start off a little bit better,” Mo said. “That’s part of the challenge.

“We know it, we discussed it, and now we have to work on it and keep building.”

Kropp led all scorers with four goals, while Javadpour and Phillips added two goals apiece. And senior Ben Petrillo was a facilitator with four assists.

“It wasn’t as pretty as we wanted it to be, but it was a gritty win,” Kropp said. “This is the second game of the season and we lost a bunch of great senior talent.”

Layne added: “Our defense definitely answered the call today.

“But we have to come out and play four quarters with intensity. We can’t have any lapses like we did a couple times today.”

Calle finished with three goals for the ’Cats. And afterwards, both coaches were impressed with Daubert on faceoffs.

“(Daubert) is a heck of a player and we knew that heading in that we would have to buckle down on defense, come up with big stops in order to get the ball on our side of the field,” Layne said.

“Jutty is one of the kind, for sure,” Mo added. “It is going to be tough once he’s gone after this season. He’s a big piece of what we do.”

Downingtown East 8, Owen J. Roberts 5

Owen J. Roberts                             0 1 3 1 — 5

Downingtown East                         2 2 3 1 — 8

Owen J. Roberts goals: Calle 3, Walker, Clefisch.

Downingtown East goals: Kropp 4, Javadpour 2, Phillips 2.

Goalie saves: Marley (OJR) 12; Quinn (DE) 11.