Friday was a great day to be a boys lacrosse team from Colonie.
First, 10th-seeded Shaker pulled the upset of the Section II, Class A playoffs with a 7-6 overtime victory over second-seeded Guilderland. Then, No. 4 Colonie rallied from a 6-3 deficit to beat crosstown rival Christian Brothers Academy 13-7 to advance to the Sectional semifinals for the first time in several years.
We’ll take this over any other (win), said Shaker coach Shawn Hennessey.
The Blue Bison (5-14) had been involved in nine one-goal games before Friday’s victory, but won only one of those contests.
`You’ve got to give them credit. A lot of teams might have given up after losing as many close games as we did, and we didn’t,` said Hennessey.
Shaker took a 2-0 first half lead thanks in large part to goaltender Ken O’Connor. The sophomore kept Guilderland (16-3) off the scoreboard with a series of clutch saves.
`A lot of it was Kenny because when they were shooting, he was either making saves or they were missing the cage,` said Hennessey.
Guilderland got to O’Connor in the second half, but Shaker was able to do enough offensively to force overtime. Then with less than five seconds left in the first overtime period, Stefan Debkowski scored his second goal of the game to lift the Blue Bison past the Dutchmen and into Tuesday’s semifinal against No. 3 Shenendehowa.
Nick Smith contributed a pair of goals, and Luke Walsh added a goal and an assist for Shaker. O’Connor finished with 20 saves.
Shortly after Shaker celebrated its quarterfinal win, Colonie faced off against No. 5 CBA with a semifinal berth on the line. Initially, it appeared to be the Brothers’ night as they built a three-goal lead late in the second quarter. But the Garnet Raiders (15-4) scored 10 of the last 11 goals of the game to pull away for the 13-7 victory.
`We knew we weren’t playing our best,` said Colonie attacker Garrett Dollard, who led the Garnet Raiders with three goals and two assists. `We had to start playing our style because we played their style for most of the first half.`
`We knew they were going to keep coming,` said CBA coach Tom Schwan. `They picked up their level of play in the second half, and I think we dropped our level of play.`
Schwan said the turning point came in the final 30 seconds of the second quarter when CBA (14-6) fired a quick shot at Colonie goaltender Matt Hamilton and missed. The Garnet Raiders capitalized by quickly charging to the other end and scoring to close the deficit to 6-5.
Colonie took its first lead midway through the third quarter. CBA pulled even on Andrew Vivian’s fourth goal of the game, but D.J. O’Connell tallied less than a minute later to give the Garnet Raiders an 8-7 lead. Colonie went on to score the last five goals of the game.
`Nobody outworks our team in practice, so when the second half comes around, we wear teams down,` said Colonie coach Mike Joyce.
`They were the better team tonight,` said Schwan. `In the overall scheme of things, they played better than we did, and they deserved to win.`
O’Connell and Dan Sofia both had hat tricks, while John Charton and Brian Sleasman each tallied twice for Colonie, which met top-seeded Niskayuna in Tuesday’s second semifinal.
In girls lacrosse action, top-seeded Guilderland won its second consecutive Section II, Class A title with an 18-10 victory over No. 2 Shaker in last Thurs-day’s final at Union College. Lexi DalCol scored three goals, and Kat Thomas added two goals and three assists for Shaker.“