Luke Walsh, the longtime assistant to Rye High football and lacrosse coaches, barely waited for the final whistle Saturday before shouting, “The Mayor’s Cup is back where it belongs!”

By Mitch Silver

Luke Walsh, the longtime assistant to Rye High football and lacrosse coaches, barely waited for the final whistle Saturday before shouting, “The Mayor’s Cup is back where it belongs!”

There was no silverware on display at Rye Country Day’s lacrosse field. No mayor on display, either. Instead, there was a thrilling lacrosse game played between hometown rivals for the mythical city championship. In the end, an undefeated juggernaut went down to defeat at the hands of the visiting Garnets. Again.

Unlike last year’s game — won by the Garnets 10-7 in a driving rain — the sun was out Saturday, a hopeful sign for the Country Day loyalists who came to see their team bag their its ninth straight victory in the month of April. Coach Matt Rosolen’s squad had tallied over a hundred goals against mostly Fairchester Athletic League opposition, and the first half looked to be more of the same.

After giving up an early score to Garnets sophomore attacker Brendan Dugan, the Wildcats tallied twice. Senior midfielder Will Halloran found the cage on a delayed offside penalty with 8:50 left in the first period, and fellow senior Riley van den Broek scored three minutes later.

That one, though, was equalized in just six seconds when Rye freshman short-stick midfielder Billy Chabot scored off a face-off win. Chabot tallied again a minute later as fellow sophomore Ryan Kirkpatrick slipped him a short pass in front of the cage.

When Halloran scored again 20 seconds into a crosschecking penalty for the Garnets, it evened the score. Forty seconds later, van den Broek un-evened it with a cute piece of under-and-up stick work for a 4-3 lead.

The Wildcats’ defense tightened up in quarter number two, led by hulking junior netminder Sean Price, and allowed only a nifty Rye score by Dugan that capped a series of short, clever passes. Meanwhile, goals from junior middie Andrew Roth and that man Halloran again gave the Grandview Avenue boys a 6-4 halftime lead. 

What did Garnet co-Coach Brian Dooley tell his charges at halftime? “Just that we needed to clean up our play. And move the ball a little quicker.”  

Three minutes into the second half, senior Noah Spaeth fed Fitzpatrick for a quick, clean score. Then junior midfielder Stephen McCarthy ended a 270° run behind the net with a jump shot to knot things again at 6.

For the rest of the period it was you-score-I-score. Sophomore midfielder Tommy Chai sandwiched two tallies for the home team around a Fitzpatrick goal with 3:19 left on the clock. Then, just nine seconds after Chai’s second goal, Garnet freshman Owen Hull scored the most spectacular goal of the day, using his long stick to control the ball off the ensuing faceoff and fling it 20 yards past Price from dead in front to tie the game at 8-8.

Rye High took control with two goals in the first four minutes of the final stanza play. Spaeth started it off with 9:27 to go, followed by Fitzpatrick. The freshman’s third goal of the game put the Garnets up by two. It stayed that way for seven long, back-and-forth minutes until van den Broek scored his own third goal of the contest with 1:29 on the clock.

When Rye won the faceoff — something sophomore Will Hynson managed to do all day — they played keep-away for the final minute and a half.  Brendan Dugan’s third goal, a short tap-in with 22 seconds to play, made the final 11-9.

Despite the loss, Coach Rosolen viewed the glass as half full. “When you lose two-thirds of your face-offs, that‘s a lot of possessions to overcome. But I thought Kyle Halloran, Will’s brother, played a fine game overall. And another senior, Andrew Antonacci, really did a great job on Brendan Dugan’s brother, Mike. I think he got just one shot all day.”