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Sports

St. Margaret's Boys Lacrosse Team Doubles Up Santa Margarita's

Tartans score seven unanswered goals, six unassisted, to overcome two-goal deficit and defeat Eagles, 8-4, in a Trinity League opener.

St. Margaret’s was staring at a two-goal deficit and “playing sloppy” 20 minutes into its game against Santa Margarita Tuesday night, when Tartans coach Gerry Manning called timeout to get his team together and, in effect, cleanse their minds.

“They needed to clean their brains. They were thinking too much,” Manning said. “We are thinkers here. We needed to stop thinking and just play.”

And play St. Margaret’s did.

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The Tartans steamrolled Santa Margarita from that point forward, scoring seven consecutive goals from the 1:19 mark of the second quarter to lead, 8-3, with 1:34 remaining in the game. The Eagles broke their scoreless drought with 3.8 seconds left, but by then St. Margaret’s players were already celebrating an 8-4 victory in a Trinity League opener.

When next week’s CIF coaches' poll is released, don’t be surprised to see fifth-ranked St. Margaret’s (3-1, 1-0) move ahead of fourth-ranked Santa Margarita (2-5, 0-1) and maybe even move higher up the poll. On Friday, St. Margaret’s defeated No. 3 San Clemente. The Tartans have posted a 31-3 league record and won the Trinity League title for four consecutive years, ever since the establishment of lacrosse as a CIF sport.

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Senior Mitchell Pok, a third-year attacker for the Tartans, scored three goals -- the first tied the score halfway through the third quarter, the next was the eventual game-winner at 10:34 of the fourth quarter, and the third was unassisted only three minutes later. As one of only three seniors on the St. Margaret's varsity, Pok has been providing senior leadership and big-game experience for the underclassmen on the team.

“We’ve been a second-half team this season, so we have to be more senior-led,” said Pok, who is 5 feet 7 and 170 pounds. “We finally started finding the open spots.”

Actually, what may have sparked the Tartans was one of their assistant coaches, who, during the timeout at 4:35 of the second quarter, loudly voiced his displeasure over the players' performance to that point. Three minutes later, junior Kent Iizuka scored off an assist from junior Matt Duenes (who scored the final goal) and the rout was on.

“It definitely did have an affect,” Iizuka said of the coach’s outburst. “We were playing sloppy and we weren’t hustling. Once we played with power moves and taking the ball to the net, we started to score.”

For the Eagles, Andrew Luher and Griffin Foster each scored twice against Tartans sophomore goalkeeper Brandon Suchand, who finished with seven saves.

St. Margaret’s will play at the prestigious Carmel Invitational Tournament on Friday and Saturday before returning to league action April 1 at home against JSerra. The road doesn’t get any easier for Santa Margarita. The Eagles will travel to Tustin Thursday to meet top-ranked Foothill (7 p.m.) before returning to league play next Tuesday at JSerra High.

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