The quest for perfection continues for the Nation Ford Falcons boys’ lacrosse team as they opened the 5A state playoff with a convincing first round win over the Spartanburg Vikings.
Nation Ford, the number one seed, scored nine unanswered second half points for a 16-3 win over the at-large seeded Vikings. The Falcons will now take on Riverside in the second round of the playoffs at 1:30 p.m. Saturday, April 23. Nation Ford has home field advantage through the playoffs and improved to 17-0 on the season with the win Wednesday night.
Falcons’ head coach Cory Turner joked his team woke up in the second half after Spartanburg made it competitive to open the game.
“I knew they would give us a fight early,” Turner said. “I knew if we stayed with our game plan, we would pull away.”
Nation Ford opened the game scoring the first four goals in the first nine minutes. Ashton Tauzin scored the opening goal with Tyler DeMarco scoring back-to-back goals about midway through the first quarter, before Josh Ameo added his first goal of the night. Spartanburg did score a goal with about 50 seconds left in the first quarter to get on the board as the Falcons led 4-1 after the quarter.
The second quarter opened with Spartanburg closing the gap scoring to make it 4-2, but that would be the closest they would get the rest of the game. Ameo scored his second goal with about 6:30 left in the second quarter and Tyler Kell would add his first goal of the game 34 seconds later. Spartanburg would get their last goal of the game with about 24 seconds left in the half, but Nation Ford would come right back winning the faceoff with Will Alvarado scoring to give Nation Ford a 7-3 lead at the half.
In the second half, it was all Nation Ford as they rattled off six third quarter goals and three fourth quarter goals. Luke Letterhos got the scoring started, as Hunter Nickola and Alex Bussman also scored. DeMarco, Kell and Tauzin each scored as well in the quarter to make it 13-3 heading into the fourth.
In the fourth quarter, DeMarco, Ameo and Jackson Brown scored for the Falcons. DeMarco led with four goals and Ameo had three for Nation Ford in the match.
Mac Banks: mac@fortmillprepsports.com, @fortprep
