SMITHSBURG – The main goal of the Smithsburg boys lacrosse team is to play full games.
That means playing every single minute to the fullest.
The Leopards put in 48 minutes of effort on Tuesday, April 15, but needed only 24 of it to get the job done.
Smithsburg unloaded an onslaught of 14 first-half goals against North Hagerstown on the way to a 16-1 victory in a Washington County matchup.
A game like this checked all the boxes for Smithsburg Coach Cullan Ganley.
“We’ve had some trouble getting going,” Ganley said. “We want to go out fast and play 48 minutes. We did it (Monday) but came up short against Linganore, but we carried over today.”
And add to it that the Leopards played crisply on offense, kept the Hubs away from the goal defensively and were able to give a number of younger players some playing time.
“We move the ball well and got a lot of crease goals tonight,” said Senior Attack Blake Linn. “That gave us the opportunity to get going to score from the outside. We were able to work in the guys who don’t get a lot of time.”
The Leopards underclassmen – freshmen and sophomores – accounted for eight of the 16 goals scored.
The starters laid the foundation early, scoring seven in each of the first two quarters for a 14-0 halftime lead. And it started quickly.
Jacob Nussear buried a goal on a five-yard shot from the right side in the first 55 seconds of the game.
Smithsburg was up 4-0 by the halfway point of the first quarter after a pair of scores by Kaden Dietrich and a score at the 6:29 mark by Nicolas Roncone.
“I believe we came together more tonight,” said Senior Attack Ayden Weakfall, who led the Leopards with four goals. “We really came out and put in the effort.”
Weakfall got his first goal at 5:33 of the first quarter on a move across the front of the goal and the last one of the period with 3:04 remaining. Sophomore Zach Linn picked up one in between for the 7-0 lead.
In the process, North Hagerstown only crossed midfield four times in the period.
“That’s something we have been having trouble with,” said North Coach Larry Winston. “We work on clearing the ball out of the zone every practice, and we are getting better. We are a really young team.
“We couldn’t get our defense reset. That’s a really good team over there. They came at us in waves.”
The wave continued in the second quarter. Dietrich scored his second off a pass from behind the goal three minutes into the period. Roncone, a freshman, got his second goal 57 seconds later before Linn got his second score to make it 10-0.
Weakfall notched his second goal with 5:36 before halftime. Then Smithburg put the indelible mark on the victory with two goals in nine seconds – one by Weakfall and the other from Matt Smith at 4:07.
Kyle Kretsinger scored from point blank range just 67 short of the intermission for the 14-0 halftime lead. Eight of the first-half goals came off of Blake Linn assists.
The Hubs managed only one shot in the half.
The second half was played with a running clock as each team substituted liberally.
After a scoreless third quarter, North avoided the shutout with 11:13 remaining in the game on charging shot in front of the net by Q Maree Winston.
The Leopards got goals by Marquis Weakfall (6:56) and Bryce Vanderhuff (5:14), both sophomores, to end the game.
Dietrich finished with three goals.
North managed just eight shots on goal for the game.
