Stopped Short
WEXFORD — Cody Bachman sunk to his knees, slipped off his helmet and stared at the North Allegheny High School turf.
Not even five goals off of the Butler star's crosse could mitigate this defeat.
His tears flowed faster than one of the shots that sizzled toward the goal following a 12-11 overtime loss suffered by the Golden Tornado boys lacrosse team to Greensburg Central Catholic in the WPIAL Division II semifinals Monday night.
“There's nothing that can be said to soften the blow of this,” said Butler boys lacrosse coach Brandon Hoskinson.
Hoskinson and his players believed strongly that they were a championship-caliber team, especially with Bachman and his school-record 64 goals this season.
Bachman scored twice in the first 1:20 of the contest to stake the Golden Tornado to a 2-0 lead. Then, Greensburg's strategy changed.
Centurions coach Mike Evans bellowed from the sideline: “He's not going to beat us.”
“(Bachman's) a great player,” Evans said. “Stopping him was one of our key strategies. He did get more than I wanted him to, but he's a great player and he's hard to stop.”
Butler built a 5-0 lead before the Centurions regrouped.
Greensburg's Phil Croker proved to be just as difficult to stop as Bachman.
Croker matched Bachman goal-for-goal and set up the game-winner off the crosse of Barrett Naugle with 32 seconds remaining in overtime.
Evans was elated about his team's moxie in overcoming the huge early deficit.
“Butler is a very good team, but I thought they were giving us some opportunities and that if we just hung in there, we could come back,” Evans said. “That's been the real hallmark of this team. They're a gutty team and they never quit. We spotted them five goals, but we fought back. That's a great characteristic to have, particularly in the playoffs.”
Greensburg (12-7) answered Butler's five goals with five of its own to tie the score late in the second quarter.The two teams entered halftime tied at 6-6, setting up a physical second half with more momentum swings than goals.The Centurions grabbed a 9-7 lead on Croker's third goal of the game with 5:49 left in the third quarter, but Butler (11-8) rallied with goals from Bachman and Cory Hilliard to knot the game up again at 9-9.The fourth quarter was more of the same with teams trading goals. The Golden Tornado trailed 11-10 with less than a minute remaining when Alex Guiste found the net off an assist from Tanner Kotch with 35 seconds remaining to force overtime.“We feel like it was right there for the taking,” Hoskinson said. “But it was taken from us.”Greensburg freshman goalie Willis Croker had a lot to do with that.The Centurions' third-string goalie this season, Croker was forced into action in this pivotal game because the starter left the team and his backup broke his arm in the quarterfinals Thursday.All the freshman keeper did was make dramatic save after dramatic save, particularly in the fourth quarter.“He must have made eight or nine absolutely incredible saves,” Hoskinson said. “It's a tough one to eat. It's a tough one to find the words to talk about.”The strategy was to shoot low against the unproven goalie, but Butler unleashed shot after shot above his waist.“We wanted to get low — that's where we scored most of our goals on him,” Hoskinson said. “We definitely didn't want to shoot high, that's for sure.”The sudden end to the season was tough to take for Hoskinson and his seniors.“We were working five, six days a week to win a championship,” Hoskinson said. “You can't say enough about the character this team brings. We have a lot of them back next year, but this one is going to sting for a bit.”
