High School Lacrosse
REGULAR SEASON
May 1, 2007
NOTES: Players chosen for first Gait Cup team
By NATHAN CHAMBERS
BeyondTheDerby.com
The finalized roster for Kentucky’s first entry in the Gait Cup National Tournament was announced last week and includes student-athletes from seven high schools.
St. Xavier has the largest contingent on Team Kentucky with eight players: Jimmy Beard, Aaron Benz, Chase Carraro, Taylor Distler, Charlie Helm, twin brothers Connor and Eamon McGetrick, and Taylor Smith. Three-time defending Kentucky Lacrosse Association Division 1 champion Trinity has five: Mike Duffy, Scott Edelen, Charlie George, Andrew Purdie, and Tim Williamson.
Other Team Kentucky players are Will Cary, Mike Imburgia, and Joe Lang from Collegiate; Brian Gordon and Alex Melnykovych from Manual; Tanner Bond and Ben Schaefer from Tates Creek; Breandan Draper and Alex Nugent from Lexington Catholic; and Oldham County’s Mike Murphy.
Lexington Catholic’s Will Craycraft and Paul Dunbar’s Eric Ayers are alternates.
Manual’s Matt Brendel and Kentucky Country Day’s Mac Barlow originally were chosen for the team but will be unavailable to play.
The Gait Cup National Tournament, which will be held July 5-8 at Gettysburg (Pa.) College, is a competitive and instructional camp that gives players the opportunity to play in front of coaches from some of the best college programs in the country.
KCD keeps Derby Cup
KCD held on to the Derby Cup on Saturday, outscoring Collegiate 44-41 while winning four of the six games in the rivalry.
KCD, which hosted the all-day event, has won the Derby Cup all three years it has been contested.
The schools split the varsity games. Hayley Grant scored four goals and Michelle Worthington had three goals and an assist for the KCD girls, who won 12-8. Imburgia then scored four goals for the Collegiate boys, who won 10-0.
In the middle-school games, KCD’s girls’ 5/6 team won 5-4; KCD’s girls’ 7/8 team won 12-7; KCD’s boys’ 5/6 team won 10-1; and Collegiate’s boys’ 7/8 team won 11-5.
The accompanying slideshow includes pictures from the girls’ varsity game and the boys’ 7/8 game.
Duck leaves Collegiate boys
The Collegiate boys’ team’s win over KCD was its third game without senior goalie Zach Duck, who quit for personal reasons.
Duck had 35 saves for the Titans this season. He led the KLA in saves-per-game as a junior, his first year as a goalie, according to coach Tom Windham.
“Zach was one of the more talented athletes I’ve coached,” Windham said.
Freshman Clayton Brown has replaced Duck full-time in the cage. Brown, who jumped to the varsity team for one game as an eighth-grader last season and backed Collegiate to an overtime win over Ballard, has made 39 saves in the last three games - including 19 in a 16-15 overtime loss to Lexington Catholic on April 20.
“Clayton is young but has eagerly stepped up to the challenge,” Windham said. “The entire team was caught off guard when Zach didn't show up for our Lexington Catholic game, but (Brown) adjusted and played a strong game that day. Since then this incident has tightened up our defense and pulled us together more to rally around Clayton, our new defensive quarterback.”
Top scorers
Tates Creek’s Tanner Bond continued to lead the KLA in scoring through the end of last week with 42 points on 22 goals and 20 assists, while Imburgia - who ranked second with 34 points - still was the top goal scorer with 27.
Trinity’s Sean Medley had 28 points on 15 goals and 13 assists; Collegiate’s Will Cary had 26 points on 15 goals and 11 assists; St. Xavier’s Travis Marcum had 25 points on 17 goals and eight assists; and Sayre’s Evan Rushcell and Tates Creek’s Connor Jonas each had 24 points.
Lexington Catholic’s Sam Holt led goalies with 59 saves.
Worthington remained the top girls’ scorer with 29 points on 11 goals and 18 assists, and teammate Hayley Grant led with 18 goals.
Ballard’s Alex Smith had 22 points - including 17 goals - and Manual’s Samantha Canary also had 17 goals.
Jordan Hanna of the Ladydawgs led goalies with 86 saves.
The scoring leaders are determined according to information that is available at kylax.org and team Web sites and that has been submitted to BeyondTheDerby.com.
(Editor’s note: Coaches and authorized team representatives are strongly encouraged to submit scores, stats, news items and story ideas to Nathan Chambers. E-mail to nchambers@beyondthederby.com.)