The Fort Mill boys’ lacrosse team advanced to the Upper State finals next week with a convincing win over the Greenville Red Raiders.
The Yellow Jackets beat Greenville 11-6 improving to 14-3 on the season and will face the Riverside Warriors on Monday, May 4 at Bob Jones Stadium on the campus of Fort Mill High.
“We came out a little slow,” said Fort Mill head coach Alex Tindall. “You got to give Greenville respect. They are a good team. They are tough. Ultimately, it has always been about us. It doesn’t matter what anyone else does or what their game plan is, if we can come out and do what we are practicing, we should come out with this result.”
Fort Mill didn’t rush things and took their time and the opening quarter before they first scored. About four minutes into the match, Maddox Baucom scored for Fort Mill. It wasn’t a minute later when Charlie McGuire extended the Fort Mill lead with another goal.
Early turnovers by the Jackets stalled their offense at times in the opening quarter. Fort Mill also struggled at times penetrating the Red Raiders defense. McGuire would get his second goal of the quarter with 22 seconds left to help give Fort Mill some breathing room heading to the second quarter.
Carson Maloney kicked off the second quarter with a goal two and a half minutes into play and then scored again little more than a minute later pushing the Fort Mill score to 5-1. Greenville added their second goal a little under midway through the second quarter, but the Jackets won the next face-off and McGuire got the hat trick with his third goal of the match.
The Red Raiders came back to cut the score in half making it 6-3 about 90 seconds later. With 2.2 seconds left in the first half, McGuire scored again for the Jackets as they took a four-goal lead into halftime. McGuire would score four goals in the match to lead Fort Mill’s offense.
Greenville started the second half scoring, but Fort Mill came right back less than 30 seconds later with a goal from Xander Jantzen. Besides the early goals, the third quarter was a defensive standoff from both schools, until the Red Raiders scored with 97 seconds remaining in the period.
Fort Mill took an 8-5 lead into the fourth quarter. Both teams became more methodical with their offense, taking their time and trying to get the best shot available. Greenville lessoned the Jackets’ lead scoring with 7:35 left in the game to pull within two goals.
Fort Mill was able to comeback about a minute later as Oliver Kulchuck scored to push the deficit to three goals. Jantzen came right back scoring a goal with less than 3:45 left in the match. Moses Bowser added to the Jackets’ score with a goal less than two minutes remaining.
May 1 Roundup
The Catawba Ridge baseball team finished the regular season with a convincing 12-2 win over Clover sweep the season series and finish 17-9 overall and 12-6 in Region 3-5A. Bryce Meil and Jack Provenzano each went 2-3 with RBIs. Austin Mayo went 2-3 with three RBIs including a home run. Cam Glaze went 3-3 with two RBIs.
The Catawba Ridge girls’ soccer team finished the regular season with a 4-2 road loss in penalty kicks to Clover after a scoreless match. The loss drops the Copperheads to 8-4 in Region 3-5A to finish region play and 17-4-1 overall. The win by Clover ties them with Fort Mill to become co-region champions with the tiebreaker for next week’s playoff seeding going to a coin toss.
Mac Banks: mac@fortmillprepsports.com, @fortprep
