La Costa Canyon Mavericks

LA COSTA — The La Costa Canyon High boys lacrosse team saw what appeared to be a laugher turn into a nail-biter before holding on for a narrow victory. The Mavericks built a six-goal lead over Littleton (Colo.) Arapahoe before hanging on for an 11-10 victory in a matchup of two of the best high school lacrosse programs in the West on Wednesday night. The win was the Mavericks’ 27th straight.
“I’m glad we got a win,” La Costa coach Jesse Foss said. “I don’t feel good about having to hang on. That shouldn’t have happened. We’ll correct those wrongs.” The Mavericks (4-0), who entered the week ranked No. 3 in the Western United States and No. 1 in California by WestSideLax.com, took a 7-2 lead into the second half, and junior Brendan Gaughan made it 8-2 10 seconds into the third quarter.
But Arapahoe (1-1), ranked fourth in the West and second in Colorado at the start of the week, scored four straight goals to cut the deficit to two. “It’s a game of streaks,” Arapahoe coach Guy Cerasoli said. "We came out slow, and they came out firing on all cylinders. We got into the locker room at halftime and let the guys know, ‘Hey, listen, we’re still in this. Five goals is not a really big deficit. We can overcome that. Just keep our nose to the grindstone.’ “We were getting a lot of looks, but their goalie was just coming up big. He was standing on his head in the first half. They started falling for us in the second.” The teams traded goals the rest of the third period, and the Warriors scored three minutes into the fourth quarter to get within 11-10, but neither team scored again. “We weren’t sliding to body,” Foss said. "We were sliding to stick and we were taking poor angles and getting beat. “That’s not the way we wanted to finish. We preach four quarters of lacrosse, playing a consistent game the whole time. We definitely didn’t do that in the second half. We got lucky.” La Costa Canyon seemed to take control of the game early in the second quarter. The Mavericks held a 3-1 lead after one quarter then scored four goals in less than two minutes. Senior Michael Gennuso led the Mavericks with three goals. Seniors Sammy Condurso, Sean Hayden and Nick Compogiannis each added two, and junior Brendan Gaughan tallied three assists. Junior Bryce Parietta had three goals for Arapahoe, which outshot the Mavericks 18-8 in the second half. La Costa Canyon goalie Eric Sanschagrin made seven saves, and the Warriors Ryan Smith stopped four shots.