The defending 5A Upper State champions, Nation Ford opened the 2023 lacrosse season by running over the Catawba Ridge Copperheads in convincing fashion.
The Falcons beat Catawba Ridge 19-2 at home in both teams’ season opener as Josh Ameo scored six goals to lead Nation Ford.
Nation Ford head coach Cory Turner said despite the score his team still had a lot of work to do and were missing four starters from Thursday’s game.
“We got a long way to go,” he said. “We got a lot of work to do. Nothing is clean yet. We have to make sure we play a lot of team ball.”
Nation Ford scored the first 15 goals of the game and had a commanding 15-0 lead deep in the third quarter before Catawba Ridge scored.
The Falcons led 4-0 after the first quarter as Tyler Kell scored the first goal of the game just 54 seconds into play for Nation Ford. Josh Ameo would score two goals in the first quarter and Luke Letterhos would add his first of three goals in the game as well.
The Falcons added seven second quarter goals going up 11-0 at the half. Hunter Nickola opened the second quarter with a goal, the first of two for him, just past the 11-minute mark. Letterhos would get his second and Ben Walczak would score to make it 7-0 with about 9:45 left in the half.
Nation Ford’s Ryan Parker and Owen Ameo would score with Letterhos finishing off his hat trick in the second quarter before Josh Ameo would put the Falcons up by nearly a dozen at the half.
The third quarter was more of the same for Nation Ford as Nickola got his second goal, Josh Ameo his fourth and fifth goals and Lukas Billings would add a goal, before Catawba Ridge got on the board with Adam Christenberry scoring with about a minute left in the third quarter.
The fourth quarter saw Josh Ameo get his sixth goal and Aiden Witkopf score a goal for the Falcons to put them up 17-1. Owen Ameo would score his second goal of the game and Billings would finish off the scoring for Nation Ford making it 19-1.
Catawba Ridge’s Luke Peterson would score for the Copperheads with 2:12 left in the game for the last goal of the contest.
Nation Ford is next scheduled to play Clover on the road Monday, Feb. 27; while Catawba Ridge is scheduled to play at TL Hanna Saturday, Feb. 25.
Mac Banks: mac@fortmillprepsports.com, @fortprep
