Q: Mix one of Montgomery County’s best public school lacrosse teams with a mediocre squad from Northern Virginia, and what do you have?
A: A spirited, hard-hitting, highly-competitive game.
That was the verdict Monday morning in the opener of the Walt Whitman Spring Break Invitational. When Madison sophomore Brendan Ginley set up junior Max Efrus for a goal in sudden-death overtime, it gave the Warhawks a 9-8 victory over Walter Johnson.
“They’re from Bethesda and they have great lacrosse there, that’s about all we knew,” said Ginley. “Hopefully, we showed them what Northern Virginia lacrosse is about.”
Monday morning it also was about a WJ squad that was missing roughly a dozen players, including four starters and several other key middies. Northern Virginia teams also have long had the benefit of a junior varsity program yet to be adopted in Montgomery County.
“That’s not the point — that we didn’t have our starters,” said WJ coach Jim Collin. “We were dropping balls. We threw it away. We weren’t very good.”
WJ, the two-time defending 3A/4A West Region champion, got strong defense from seniors Brett Linowes and Chris Chapman while seniors Joe Brody (three goals) and Eric Weissman (two goals) led the offense. The Wildcats also dominated the first four minutes of the second half, scoring three straight goals to take a 6-4 lead. But after that, Madison (3-5) showed its grit.
WJ (4-4) lost to Loudoun Valley, 7-4, in its second game of the day.
