By David Troppens
Tri-County Times Sports Editor
Goodrich — It’s been a tough start to the season for the defending Flint Metro League champion Fenton Tigers in varsity boys lacrosse action.
The Tigers have had more than their share of injuries to start the season, and it’s resulted in a 0-4 start entering its first Metro contest against the Lake Fenton/Goodrich (LFG) co-op squad at Goodrich High School on April 8.
But the squad finally got its first win. In what was a tight battle for most of the game, the Tigers earned the game-winning goal 31 seconds into overtime on a goal by sophomore Brady Brogren, his second goal of the contest.
“I’m happy,” Brogen said about his goal. “Nate Roberts had the assists, and I shot it left.
“It’s amazing. We’ve worked hard all season and we finally won.”
The win came at the right time. It was the first game of the league season, so the Tigers are tied for first one game into the league slate. Meanwhile, LFG had reason to feel good about its performance. The squad overcame two deficits.
LFG (0-2) trailed 4-1 less than five minutes into the game, and looked overwhelmed at the time. However, the squad bounced back and started overwhelming Fenton during the rest of the first quarter, tying the game at 4-all entering the second stanza.
Neither team led by two goals again until the final shot of the third quarter. Fenton’s Roberts scored a goal, giving the Tigers an 11-9 lead. However, LFG battled back. A goal by Murphy Conley cut the gap to 11-10 with 9:10 left in regulation. Then, while enjoying a man advantage, LFG scored the final goal of regulation with 22 seconds left on a shot by Ian Shoemaker, assisted by Cooper Hallwood. That set up the sudden-death overtime period. Fenton won the face-off and was the only team to have possession during the extra session.
“We’ve been snake bit,” Fenton varsity boys lacrosse coach Greg Normand said. “We have nine injuries and I’m playing a JV team. I have one player back (Roberts) and I have two all-state players still not playing. We were snake bit our first four games and then we came out here and kept shooting ourselves in the foot, but we finally managed to get a win.
“We will see where we can go when we get healthy. Between now and (April) 19th, I basically get my starting lineup back that I was supposed to have to compete for the league championship.”
But one game into the season, the inexperienced players have earned a win until that time has come.
LFG is a young squad. The program has eight freshmen and four sophomores on it among the 20 players on it. So hanging with Fenton (1-4) was a feather in the program’s cap as well.
When the team trailed 4-1, Trey MacDonald scored two goals and Conley had one, tying the game at 4-all. LFG took its first lead at 5-4 just 21 seconds into the second quarter on a Hallwood goal. From there, the teams found themselves in an entertaining battle that saw six more ties and three more lead changes over the rest of the contest.
“We are a young team,” LFG varsity boys lacrosse coach Brad Laikes said. “We’ve got a lot of talent on this team, and for as young as we are, we are going to have a good team in a couple of years, and I think we can keep moving forward this year.
“It’s a tough loss, it’s going to be tough to make it up, but we will have other opportunities to make it up.”
The game also was just LFG’s second of the season while Fenton was playing its fifth, so considering LFG’s youth, their performance was even more impressive.
Both teams were balanced with their scoring. Owen Mueller and Evan Crane had three goals each while Brogren and Roberts had two each. Kalib Matthys and Jonah Andrews had one goal each.
Hallwood led LFG with five goals while MacDonald and Conley had two goals each. Ian Shoemaker and Max Lutz had one each.