Wednesday, April 28, 2004

Warrior stickmen get the scoop

New lacrosse team brings it on home

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The crowd didn’t match the 18,694 fans—second largest crowd in college lacrosse regular-season history—who watched the top-ranked John Hopkins Blue Jays beat #2-ranked Navy 10-9 in a thrilling overtime lacrosse game Saturday at Navy Marine Corps Stadium in Annapolis, Md.

But the first-year Wood River Warriors lacrosse team doesn’t quite have the history of John Hopkins, which has an 829-262-15 record and 42 national championships in 116 seasons of collegiate lacrosse. Wood River was glad to have about 100 fans rooting hard on a beautiful Sunday afternoon.

Joey Stevenson, WR Warriors goaltender, directs an outlet pass to start an attack. Express photo by Willy Cook

The occasion was Wood River’s first home lacrosse games at the middle school field in Hailey. The still-learning Warriors, basically a junior varsity and younger team, took the field against a much more experienced Timberline High team from Boise.

Coaches Sean St. Johns, Doug Cooper and Bill Baybutt with the help of general manager Alan Stevenson put together a 28-player Warrior roster for the Sunday doubleheader—and Wood River players showed they are quickly picking up the fundamentals.

Timberline, one of Boise’s better teams in the 10-team Treasure Valley league, won the morning game 13-2 and took the afternoon affair 17-2.

"Our defense and goaltenders kept us in the games," said St. Johns. "Our offensive skills, the passing and shooting and dodging, will take more time. The biggest thing to me was to see our players stay positive, knowing they were outmatched."

Defenseman Nate Douthit scored the morning’s first goal on a beautiful bounce shot and attacker Max Kuross had the second goal. Goalie Joey Stevenson faced 32 shots and for the most part did a fine job in the net.

In the second game, midfielder Jack Harris snuck home an early goal and Joey Stevenson, moving upfield to the midfield position, added the second goal. New goalie Brandon Leavitt had some incredible saves, despite having only two practices as a goalie. He faced upwards of 35 shots.

Doing the job defensively were Chris Bailet, Jason Syms, James Hansen and Douthit. Among the other contributors were midfielders Joe France and Josh Thornton, and attackman Milt Allen.

Wood River returns to the Treasure Valley this weekend for a game at Meridian Saturday, May 1 at 2 p.m. and at Centennial Sunday, May 2 at 11 a.m. Next Warrior home games are Saturday, May 15 in Hailey.

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