Written by Lourdes Ramierz
Lacrosse Senior Night was held on Friday, April 26. The varsity team played against East Chapel Hill and lost 3 to 23. All of the OHS goals were scored by sophomore Bowen Collins. Families and friends were there to show support to the OHS lacrosse team and one group of spectators painted the numbers of their favorite players on their bodies.
The season has been a rough one with only one varsity game won throughout the whole season against Northern Durham.
Regardless of wins or losses, the team still tried their hardest. They struggled through the majority of the season, but played a good game on Friday.
“I think we’re a good team, but we just face really hard teams,” said Senior Damarius Hatfield. He also said that his favorite thing about playing lacrosse was getting to play with his teammates.
Dylan Mckinnon, a junior, said that the team had to work on all their skills. They tried a new tactic called man-to-man defense, which seemed to work, but still needed more practice. One factor that really hurt the team was that the game was held on senior skip day so the team was missing a lot of players. Mckinnon said, “I had 17 saves and Chris Lamay had a good shot from outside the attack box,” and went on to talk about how the team is improving. Lamay, featured in picture on right, is a senior.
The next match is Monday, April 15 and is away at East Chapel Hill High School. This match is rescheduled from March 12 when it was canceled due to rain.
Also this week, the lacrosse team is away against the Cedar Ridge Red Wolves Tuesday, April 16. Friday, April 19, the lacrosse team has a home match against Chapel Hill High School. Junior varsity will play at 5 p.m. and varsity will play at 7 p.m for all three matches.
March 22 , the Orange High varsity lacrosse team played a home game against Roxboro Community School. The Panthers lost the game in a 7-4 non-league match. Roxboro Community School (RCS) is now 3-2 for the season. The Panthers are now 1-5 for the season after the loss to RCS.
Both teams were focused and traded turnovers. Near the end of the game, RCS played hard and got ahead in goals. Earlier on Wednesday, March 20, the Panthers faced Oxford Webb on Webb’s home field. The Panthers played tough throughout the game, but in the end the Oxford Webb Warriors came out on top, winning 7-5.
The lacrosse coach was proud of his goalie #4 Dylan McKinnon. McKinnon had 14 saves during the game. #13 Brock Fuller scored all five points for the Panthers. Warriors goalie Reggie Campos blocked 9 of the Panthers attempts to get ahead in the game.
#9 Chance Durham stated, “We are capable of so much more, we just have to focus.”
The one goal scored for OHS was shot by, sophomore, Bowen Collins.
The Cedar Ridge Red Wolves were fluent in the passes and the offense kept the ball forward for the majority of the game. The OHS Panthers, on the other hand, seemed to be having trouble communicating where to move the ball and did not work well with their teammates. They had very few clean passes and even fewer catches.
OHS seemed to struggle communicating with their team members’, and frequently would try to score without passing to their teammates, even if they were open. At some points, the team could even be seen fighting over getting the ball with each other.
With the poor performance of the offense and defense, the goalkeeper, Junior, Dylan McKinnon, was confronted with numerous shots by Cedar Ridge where they were standing right next to the goal, which gave him no reasonable chance to react.
While the Red Wolves’ did score 17 times, McKinnon saved a total of 18 shots.
OHS’ defense seemed to be too concerned with getting the ball rather than making sure they were covering the Red Wolves’ offense, forcing McKinnon to be overwhelmed by the close shots taken by the Cedar Ridge offense.
The OHS Lacrosse team, usually at least an adequate team, struggled and suffered a tremendous loss against the Red Wolves.
