Cherry Creek repeats in boys lacrosse

Vanessa Hughes, Special to the News

Sunday, May 21, 2006

In boxing, the undercard normally is a couple of unknowns going at it, while the main event is what brings most fans to the ring.

That wasn't the case Saturday night at Invesco Field at Mile High. The main event, which featured the Major League Lacrosse debut of Denver's new outdoor team, the Outlaws, was the team no one yet knew about.

But, the undercard featured two of the state's most well-known and successful boys lacrosse powerhouses, Cherry Creek and Denver East battling for the state title. Cherry Creek, the defending state champion, had no trouble against East, leaving the Angels on their heels most of the night, en route to a 6-2 victory for its second consecutive state title and 10th overall.

"I thought it was going to be a little closer," Cherry Creek coach Bryan Perry said. "I think we got up on them and they didn't have many answers and our kids just kept playing hard."

After a scoreless seven-plus minutes in the opening quarter, East got on the board first on an unassisted goal by freshman midfielder, Patrick Murray with 4 minutes, 52 seconds remaining. The Angels led 1-0 after one quarter - their only lead of the contest.

Cherry Creek took over from there, scoring four goals in the second quarter, including two by Peter Hoselton, who finished with three goals.

"I've never had a hat trick in my life, in eight years of playing lacrosse," admitted the senior midfielder. " I don't know what happened."

What happened was Hoselton and Cherry Creek dominated every aspect of the game: time of possession, ground balls, play between the boxes and most importantly, energy. The Bruins outshot East 16-7 in the first half and took a commanding 4-1 lead at the break.

Cherry Creek sealed it in the fourth on a beautiful unassisted goal by Marty Taffet, which put the Bruins ahead 6-1.

Denver East coach Jon Barocas, in his 28th season with the Angels, said, "I don't know if they took us out of our game so much as we took ourselves out of it. I don't know what it was tonight, but the offense just did not click tonight like they had all year."

It was the second time in less than a month that the teams have played at Invesco. East knocked off Creek, 7-6 on April 22nd. Clearly, this time around, with the stakes much higher, the outcome was totally different.

"The last time we played these guys, we just did not have the pieces of the puzzle together," Perry said. "We knew that by the time the playoffs came around, we were going to have it together and we did."

Leading up to the title game, Cherry Creek, who finished the season at 14-4, had fallen on some tough times. The Bruins lost three one-goal games, but shut out Golden in the state quarterfinals and Kent Denver in the semifinals.

"We came together towards the last week of the regular season and we've been riding this momentum wave all the way through," Hoselton said.

East ended up at 17-2. In an interesting twist, several members of both Creek and East's coaching staffs will be with the Outlaws. Perry is an Outlaws assistant, and Barocas is the team's director of college scouting. Also, Outlaws midfielder Matt Rewkowski is an assistant for East, while midfielder Mike LaMonica assists Perry at Cherry Creek.