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Kent Denver starts fast to finish Creek boys lacrosse

By Scott Stocker, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)

Published April 15, 2008 at 8:41 p.m.

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Kent Denver slammed the door immediately Tuesday in the Sun Devils' 14-7 victory against Cherry Creek in a boys lacrosse game matching two of the state’s premier schools.

It took Kent’s Michael Reilly nine seconds to score the first goal. He won the faceoff on the opening whistle, scooped up the ball and headed toward the Cherry Creek goal. A quick snap of the wrist and it was 1-0 with 11:51 left in the first quarter.

But it didn’t end there. Reilly won the next two faceoffs and Kent quickly converted on goals by Will Horne, with 10:17 left in the quarter, and a third by Reilly, with 10:04 remaining.

In fact, Kent’s first three goals were scored before No. 3 Cherry Creek, which fell to 7-3, touched the ball on offense.

In all, three of Kent’s players would complete the game with hat tricks: Patrick Murray, Frazier Cavness and Moses Taylor. And the Sun Devils received a tremendous game in goal from Lucien Reichert.

“Creek is a very good team, certainly one of our biggest games of the year,” said Murray, who also contributed an assist on Taylor’s third goal. “We didn’t count them out in the second half and we kind of let up. But the goal at the beginning of the third period (by Cavness) got our momentum back.

“Lucien was great in goal and helped save the day,” said Murray, who scored his first goal with 5:43 left in the opening period. “We’ve got a tough game Friday against Denver East and we’ve got to be ready. Then it’s Fort Collins and a team coming in from California, St. Ignacio’s Prep. This win today is awesome.”

Kent led 5-0 before Cherry Creek was able to get on the scoreboard on a goal by R.C. Willenbrock with 1:19 left in the first quarter. The Bruins didn’t take long to get their second one, though, as Jack Heuer scored with 55 seconds left on the clock.

But with 15 seconds left in the first quarter, Kent’s B.J. Smith scored to give the Sun Devils a commanding 6-2 lead.

“Obviously when you start like that you get fired up and they were behind the eight ball,” said Kent Denver coach Tom Graesser. “Just running off like that was a surprise. It is a great rivalry. Most of our kids know their kids so it makes it pretty exciting.

“Patrick had a great game, but a lot of guys had a great game today,” Graesser said. “Michael had a great game facing off and Lucien was unbelievable in goal. We gave him the game ball. They buried us last year in our game at Invesco so I guess you can say turnabout is fair play.”

Kent extended its lead to 7-2 on Horne’s second goal with 7:06 left in the first half. But the Bruins closed the gap with late goals by Michael Beimford and Willenbrock’s second goal.

Cherry Creek trailed, 10-6, midway through the fourth quarter, but Moses Taylor slammed the door, scoring three straight goals in a span of 2 minutes, 18 seconds.

“This was an unbelievable game for us,” Taylor said. “We knew they were going to make a run in the third and fourth quarters and luckily our defense held strong and weathered the storm. This gave our offense some good opportunities to put the ball in the net.

“Indeed, Lucien saved our butts,” Taylor said. “They were ripping shots off the top and he was making good saves, getting the ball out and giving our offense time to get our shots off.”

It was not the kind of day Cherry Creek coach Bryan Perry had expected.

“We played catch-up and it is tough against a good team like Kent,” Perry said. “They were playing really hard and really smart and we didn’t have any answers. We just were not ready to go today, that’s the bottom line. We will keep after it and see what happens. We certainly learned some things today and we will use this to get better.”

KENT DENVER 14, CHERRY CREEK 7

Cherry Creek 2 2 1 2 - 7

Kent Denver 6 1 2 5 - 14

Goals-assists: CC - R.C. Willenbrock (2-0), Hamilton Blair (2-0), Michael Beimford (1-1), Ryan Link (1-1), Jack Heuer (1-0). KD - Patrick Murray (3-1), Moses Taylor (3-0), Frazier Cavness (3-0), Michael Reilly (2-1), Will Horne (2-0), B.J. Smith (1-0), David Hanley (0-1), David Key (0-1). Shots - CC - 38, KD, 34. Saves - CC (Jef Barton) 12, KD (LucienReichert) 15.