Seniors Skovran Cunningham and Maxwell Shukuya watch the defense as they stand on offense.

Lacrosse team wraps up season with a wild game – but without a win

Although the game against the Casa Roble Rams was close, the Cavs still came up without a win to finish their winless season.

In their last game, the team was defeated by Casa Roble High School, 6-7, on May 8.

The Cavs finished with a record of 0-5, not including scrimmages.

Casa Roble came into the game with an overall record of 0-15.

The Rams hadn’t won a game since April 20, 2013, against Red Bluff High School, 19-10, in a non-conference game.

The Cavs were scheduled to play Casa Roble twice this season, on March 16 and on April 6, but had to forfeit due to a lack of players.

After senior Chris Liston won the face-off, the Cavs were off to a fast start with sophomore Aidan Cunningham scoring within the first three minutes.

The Cavs’ crowd, including students, teachers and parents, cheered Aidan’s goal and continued to do so throughout the game.

Senior Skovran Cunningham scored four goals and Aidan scored two.

The game was very aggressive. There were many yellow flags and a lot of players sent to the penalty box on both sides.

Near the end of the third quarter, Casa Roble’s goalie was running with the ball in his glove, when senior Ethan Ham had checked him. The goalie immediately fell to the ground along with Ham. When the goalie got up he yelled at the ref, “that was a f*cking slash!” The ref threw his yellow flag and sent the goalie to the penalty box for two minutes for unsportsmanlike conduct. A defensive player was goalie for the two minutes of the goalie’s absence.

In the middle of the third quarter, senior Keegan Crain had scored a goal from a very far distance. After the goal was scored, the ref asked if he could see Crain’s lacrosse stick, to see if it was an illegal stick.

Crain tossed the stick at the ref, and the ref immediately threw his yellow flag. The ref then observed the stick and concluded that the stick was indeed illegal.

Crain received a two-minute sentence in the penalty box for tossing the stick at the ref along with a three-minute sentence for an illegal stick. With a total of five minutes in the penalty box, Crain was thrown out of the game for fouling out. Not only was he out of the game, but the refs removed the goal he had made, bringing the score of 6-3, down to 5-3.

“I feel like that’s the first time in Country Day history that this has happened,” Crain said. “It was unexpected and the ref called too much over nothing.”

The Cavs had led the whole game and were leading 5-3 in the third quarter. But in the last quarter things took a turn. The Rams had scored four goals on goalie junior Brad Petchauer. The score was tied 6-6, when a Casa Roble player had shot and made a goal with only 43 seconds left in the game. The Rams exploded with excitement.

“(We did) not play as well as we should have,” Crain said.

However, Skovran said he thought this was the best game that the team has ever played.

“A lot of players stepped up,” he said. “It was the best game of (freshman) Theo Kaufman. He made a big impact. It was nice to have contributions from Ethan and Keegan Crain. In the end we should have made goals and we should have finished on our shots.”

Senior Alex Bushberg agreed.

“Overall both the teams worked hard and did well,” he said. “I think this team just had a lot of fight in them. We wanted to get a win, especially for the seniors who have played since freshman year. It’s a hard loss, and everyone can think of a reason why we lost, but we had so much fun with each other and we got better.”

Coach Aaron Couchot agreed.

“They played great,” he said. “They played their hearts out for the full 48 minutes. Finally, for the first time, we had all of our players at a game. All the players improved immensely from the beginning of the year.”

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