Country Day 13, East Grand Rapids 5

The Yellow Jackets Pose with their State Championship Trophy (Photo via the Detroit Free Press).

Country Day sealed a great day for Oakland County lacrosse as they followed up Brother Rice’s domination of Forest Hills Eastern/Northern with their own bludgeoning of a Kent County squad with a 13-5 victory over East Grand Rapids. The Yellow Jackets earned some revenge for their 9-10 loss at the hands of EGR earlier this spring.

Country Day drew first blood, but the Pioneers managed to keep the game close, trailing only 2-3 at the end of the first quarter. However, DCD went on a tear in the second quarter, running up an 8-2 lead at the half. East Grand Rapids didn’t stop the bleeding until they finally made the score 9-3 in the third. Country Day managed to outscore them 4-2 the rest of the way to finish with the 8-goal win.

Harrison Rosenfeld scored four goals for the Yellow Jackets, while his teammates Bobby Weiner and Andrew Weinert score three apiece. The story of the day, however, was at the faceoff X where Griffin Hawkins of Country Day dominated, allowing the Jackets to control possession for the entire game, and dictate the pace. Goalie Ahmed Iftikhar made 7 saves for DCD.

The Yellow Jackets started the season 2-7, but finished on an 11-game win streak en route to the state title.

Elsewhere

The Detroit Free Press covers the final. Michigan Prep Zone also talks about the excellent performance by Country Day. The Grand Rapids Press has a post-mortem from EGR’s point of view:

“I think a lot of it was just the state championship environment, our sophomores and juniors have never been in this type of environment,” said Coretti, who scored four goals for EGR. “When we went down in the beginning, everyone’s heads started wandering away.”

Yikes; sounds like the Pioneers were not ready for the big stage. Coretti will attend a postgrad year of prep school at Hotchkiss in Connecticut to help explore his hockey and lacrosse options at the next level. Update: West Michigan All Star with some photos.