The Eastlake High School boys lacrosse team finished runner-up in last year’s San Diego Section Division II championship game to make program history.
The Titans earned the No. 1 seed in this year’s division playoff field. But their bid to return to the championship game, and perhaps orchestrate a different ending, ended with Wednesday’s 8-7 semifinal-round loss to fifth-seeded Francis Parker.
Instead, the Lancers (15-5) will meet second-seeded Granite Hills (14-6) in Saturday’s Division II championship game at Del Norte High School.
Eastlake proved to be its own enemy on Wednesday after spotting the visitors to a 4-0 lead. The Titans were clearly the better team the rest of the way but the early deficit proved too much to overcome.
“We seemed to struggle early in games all season,” EHS coach Dale Drees acknowledged after the disappointing elimination loss. “But you’ve got to give the team credit for the fight it put up the last three quarters.
“It would have been easy for every guy on the team to get down on themselves so early in the game but they kept their composure the entire game.”
The Titans (13-7) trailed 6-2 at halftime but came out with both renewed energy and renewed sense of purpose in the second half as Michael Carino and Braden Mayer scored goals 26 seconds apart to trim the Francis Parker lead to 6-4.
Tony Santos scored with 29.2 seconds left in the third quarter to narrow the score further to 6-5.
But the hosts just could not keep the momentum going to notch the game-tying goal. Instead, opportunity favored the visitors as Jacob Steensma put his team on his shoulders by scoring two back-breaking goals in the fourth quarter.
Steensma, who finished the game with six goals, scored with 9:48 to play in regulation to put his team up 7-5. He scored an even more crushing goal with 1:54 left that came just nine seconds after play resumed following a timeout.
Mesa League champion Eastlake made a late challenge as Chase Trinidad made it 8-7 with 13.6 seconds left. The Titans regained possession for one final rush in a bid to send the game into overtime but a pass went out of bounds with two seconds to play to hand possession to the Pacific League champion Lancers, who promptly ran out the clock.
Mayer led his team with three goals in the loss.
Jonathan Gordon was credited with 16 saves for Francis Parker.
“We had a couple of opportunities but didn’t capitalize on them,” Drees said. “But otherwise I was proud of our season.
“Francis Parker is a good team and I knew the outcome would likely come down to which team could control the ball; they controlled it a little more than we did.”
The loss couldn’t have come at a worse time for Eastlake. The Titans graduate 15 seniors off this year’s team.
“We’ll be rebuilding next year,” Drees said.
Game on
The Titans recorded lopsided wins in their two opening playoff games, defeating 16th-seeded Mira Mesa, 21-4, in an opening round match on May 8 and following that up with an 11-7 quarterfinal-round victory against eighth-seeded Point Loma on May 11.
Jackson Schneider led Eastlake with five goals and two assists in the win over Mira Mesa while Chase Trinidad collected four goals and one assist. McKinley Egland-Young contributed three goals and three assists while Santos had three goals and two assists.
Ethan Schneider scored two goals while Renick Martin, Aidan Curtis, Jameson Masias and Zach Shields each scored one goal.
Zach Ertzner led all players with eight ground balls while Kai Bowden was credited with seven goalkeeper saves.
Chase Trinidad topped the Titans in scoring with six points (two goals, four assists) in the win over the Pointers.
Jackson Schneider tallied three goals and one assist while Egland-Young recorded a hat trick. Santos had two goals while Masias scored one goal.
Santos led all players eight ground balls while Bowden notched 17 saves.
Photo Gallery by Phillip Brents
