Boys’ Lacrosse: Sea Kings stunned

MISSION VIEJO — Nicholas Shanks cut Corona del Mar High’s season short of perfection.

Two and a half weeks ago, he and St. Margaret’s tried to spoil the Sea Kings’ undefeated season, only to fall short at home. On a neutral site and in the semifinals of the U.S. Lacrosse Southern Section South Division semifinals, Shanks and the Tartans once again rallied late to take the lead against the top-ranked team in the state by laxpower.com.

This time, they held on. Shanks came up big, either scoring or assisting on five key goals, enabling St. Margaret’s to come back and pull off an 8-6 upset at Mission Viejo High on Saturday.

The Tartans (19-3), ranked No. 8 in the state, became the first team this year to beat CdM (18-1), earning them a trip to the South Division final. Many believed this year’s South Division championship would feature the top two seeds, Foothill (20-2) and CdM.

It’s not going to play out that way.

The No. 3-seeded Tartans get to face No. 4 JSerra (15-4), which stunned defending champion Foothill, 14-13, in overtime. The South Division championship at Tustin High on Wednesday will be an all San Juan Capistrano affair.

The Tartans advanced because of Shanks’ performance. The junior finished with three goals and two assists.

“Today was not really a reflection of who we are,” said CdM Coach G.W. Mix, whose team had allowed eight goals only one other time this season, in a 15-8 win at Studio City Harvard-Westlake on April 28. “Our seniors have had a remarkable four years at Corona del Mar and have really helped to elevate our program to be among the best out there. For a small public school in Orange County, that’s a pretty neat deal. I’m super proud of them.”

The Sea Kings fell short of recording their second undefeated campaign in the program’s history. Since a 24-0 run three years ago, CdM has only dropped six games. Half of those setbacks have come against the Tartans.

In order to return the South Division finale for the second time in three years, the Tartans played on the same field where they last knocked off CdM two years ago. Back then, they met in the South Division finals, the right to play for the U.S. Lacrosse Southern Section title.

St. Margaret’s is now one win away from the big game.

The opening period in the semifinals didn’t look too good for the Tartans. Two of the nation’s top face-off specialists, St. Margaret’s Ryan Harnisch and CdM’s Jason Simaan, who are bound for Denver and Brown, respectively, squared off three times in the first quarter, and Simaan won each battle.

The junior helped CdM control the action in the first 12 minutes, and it capitalized on its best two chances. Jordan Greenhall scored first, 43 seconds into the match, and Sachin Gokhale made it 2-0 midway through the first quarter.

Both attackers had room to maneuver, and they came at goalie Payton Fales from up top, before veering toward the right to beat the junior. It took St. Margaret’s more than nine minutes to test Yale-bound goalie Hoyt Crance and he turned away a shot by Erik Suh.

Crance had a 3-0 lead to work with after Sherwin Gersten produced a goal with 8:46 left in the second quarter. Crance and company blanked the Tartans until the 7:18 mark in the second. Kevin Cox delivered the Tartans’ first goal, one St. Margaret’s Coach Glen Miles called gigantic because it allowed his team to relax.

The game’s first three goals were unassisted, and Fernando Delgado and Shanks changed that trend 19 seconds after Cox’s goal. The two teamed up on a goal, the Villanova-bound Delgado finding Shanks, who got one past Crance, who made four saves. Shanks helped St. Margaret’s even the score at 3-3 by assisting on Conrad Hampson’s goal with 3½ minutes left in the first half.

It appeared the teams would go into halftime tied, one winning the first quarter and the other the second. Shanks had other ideas.

With one second left, the attacker released a low wrist shot from the left side, surprising Crance. With that, St. Margaret’s went into the break with a 4-3 lead and the momentum.

“It was a loose ball up near the top there, you know, kind of a scrum for it,” Mix said of what set up the Tartans’ go-ahead score right before halftime. “When that happens, when you’re swarming a ground ball and the wrong guy comes up with it, bad things are going to happen, you know, against a good team, and that’s exactly what happened.”

The last time St. Margaret’s roared back to take the lead against CdM was on April 22, when it scored four straight goals to go ahead, 5-4, with 8:06 left to play.

In the second encounter with CdM, Shanks gave St. Margaret’s a little breathing room early in the second half. He found the back of the net and the Tartans led by two at the 9:43 mark in the third quarter, but in the next five minutes, CdM responded. Greenhall added his second goal and Max Kline the first of his two goals to tie the game at 5-5.

Then the Sea Kings found themselves in a tough spot when Kline picked up a slashing penalty with 3:05 left in the third. Eight seconds later, St. Margaret’s broke the tie. Shanks assisted on Samuel Harnisch’s man-up goal.

With a 6-5 advantage, Shanks and the Tartans found themselves in a similar situation against CdM. They fell apart with a one-goal lead the last time in the fourth, allowing CdM to score three consecutive times to top the Tartans, 7-5.

“We felt like we had that game,” Miles said. “We were up, 5-4, with possession [and] six minutes left. I know lacrosse goes back and forth, but I kind of felt like that was ours and … we gave it away.”

The Tartans didn’t cave in to CdM again.

Zachary Shor put St. Margaret’s up by two with 1:19 left in the third, and three minutes into the fourth, Patrick Fallon made it 8-5.

Fales, who finished with 10 saves, and the defense shut down CdM for a little more than six minutes in the fourth. The Sea Kings were about to be eliminated in the semifinals for the second time in as many years. With 2:41 to go, the Tartans allowed Kline to cut the deficit to 8-6, and the score stayed that way, leaving CdM with an unusual feeling at the end.

“Part of it is we don’t really know how to act [when we lose],” said Mix, whose team outscored the opposition, 242-52, during the first 18 games of the season. “It’s not a feeling we want to get used to. That’s for sure.”