By Greg Bates
Correspondent
DE PERE – When the Bay Port boys’ lacrosse team is clicking on all cylinders offensively, it’s tough to stop.
De Pere Central found that out the hard way Thursday, May 13.
Leading 5-2 in the third quarter, Bay Port scored eight unanswered goals in 7 minutes, 21 seconds to blow open the game.
The visiting Pirates went on to defeat De Pere Central 17-3 at Nowak Family Field.
“We were sloppy at first – it was close at first – but once we started firing passes, cutting, starting turning up, we got more goals and it went from there,” said Bay Port midfielder Zach Brown, who scored five goals in the victory.
Fellow junior Gage Newman scored six times, five in the second half.
“The great thing about us is you can’t focus on one guy,” Bay Port head coach Jason Chaplin said. “It could be anybody any night. I have at least nine guys I’m comfortable with who can put those kinds of numbers up on any given night. So, if they put their best defensive player on our best offensive player, we take advantage of the other stuff.”
Bay Port (4-3, 3-0 Bay Valley Lacrosse Association) was up 2-1 before it tallied the final two goals of the opening half to go up 4-1.
During the 10-minute halftime window, Chaplin slightly altered his scheme to get his offense flowing.
“They had us at the beginning,” Chaplin said. “They were playing along with us, but we made some adjustments and I let the guys loosen up and they took advantage of it. We opened up our offense to match how they were playing. We were cutting a more than we normally do in our offense into the middle where they were leaving it open.”
The Pirates’ offense became explosive after De Pere Central made it 5-2.
A De Pere player was whistled for a two-minute body checking penalty, and Bay Port went on the man advantage.
Jay Ribar scored, and 40 seconds later, Newman found the back of the net on the power play.
Brown tallied back-to-back goals, and Tyler Gabriels’ score made it 10-2.
De Pere Central (0-7) imploded after a good first half.
“Some penalties occurred at unfortunate times,” De Pere Central head coach Charlie Jacobs said. “It’s hard to recover from a two-minute locked penalty because they can just pour them in, and it’s hard to recover that. That was a difficulty. We’re a young team, 17 of our 22 guys are either freshmen or sophomores. While lots of them are good players, some learning still has to be done so they can be competitive and some size differentials – it was tough.”
With a double-digit lead entering the fourth quarter, Bay Port’s offense didn’t let up.
The Pirates’ offense possessed the ball about 80-90 percent of the time in the second half.
All that possession time wore down the De Pere players.
The key to the long possessions was domination in the faceoff circle and limiting turnovers.
“Sam Komoroske, our faceoff guy, took control of the X, which is a huge advantage,” Chaplin said. “We’ve been on the other side of that, and it’s not fun to play defense the entire game. We’re a fast team, so when we get that advantage, we take it to them.”
Editor’s note: Lacrosse in the state is not a WIAA sanctioned sport.