Vashon Vultures season ends at State Semifinal

Published 1:30 am Tuesday, May 30, 2017

Vashon’s high-school age boys’ lacrosse team, the Vashon Vultures, endured a season-ending loss to the Bellingham Warriors at Vashon High School last Wednesday, ending its stellar season.

It was an intense game, with a huge home field crowd in attendance, including players from the last Vashon lacrosse team to win a state championship. Vashon came out strong, and after some good saves at both ends, Vulture Paris Brown ripped one in to take an early lead. Bellingham answered with two of their own, and then Vashon’s Jake Carmon tied it up with a nice feed from Adrian St. Germain, who was active in midfield throughout the game. The first quarter ended with Vashon down one goal, 3-2.

The second quarter was more of the same. Brown scored another with a nice individual effort, blowing through three defenders to make some space and get the shot. Vashon’s Calvin McMillan then added one with a nice feed from Dawit Tuller-Ross, who had beat two men at the top of the box. But the quarter’s 5-4 score was the closest the game would be. Bellingham added one more just before halftime to lead 6-4.

The offense was creating plenty of chances — there were at least three great feeds to an open man in front of goal that did not come to fruition — but the defense needed to step up to the challenge from Bellingham, which was spreading out the scoring.

After halftime, Bellingham came out with some defensive adjustments that shut down the Vashon scoring machine. The team also began running a play right up the middle, challenging and beating the Vultures midfield repeatedly. Vulture Malcolm Henry was in an uneven matchup and defensive legs were getting tired. An unanswered five-goal onslaught from Bellingham was the result, resulting in an 11-4 score heading into the fourth quarter. At least two goals were due to fouls resulting in defensive players in the penalty box. One penalty was called for a player not having his mouth guard in correctly. Nothing seemed to go right.

In the fourth quarter, Vashon managed just one goal on an individual effort by St. Germain, who took it right through a midfield sandwich to come out with an unopposed shot on goal.

Vashon’s Max Schira and Kiryk Mozeleski tried a number of give-and-go plays, but they just could not penetrate the Warrior defense. The clinic continued up the center and the final score was 14-5.

Bellingham keyed on and shut down Vashon’s top scorers, relegating them to attempted assists. They also found out how to beat the Vulture offense and hammered the weak point.

That said, the Vultures provided some real thrills this season. They snuffed the hopes of Klahowya and got revenge over last year’s losses. Their undefeated conference regular season earned them a bye in the first round (in which they were defeated last year), and they won handily in the quarterfinals against a solid Sehome team, essentially going two games farther into the playoffs this year.

A number of Vashon players were also honored with all-conference first team selections, including senior captain Carson Nye. He drove the team’s preseason training regimen and gave coach Dan Macca an in-shape and ready squad to start with. Also receiving first team honors were junior goalkeeper Duncan McMillan, senior Kellen Riley for his face-off prowess, senior Tuller-Ross for his indefatigable work in midfield and Mozeleski at attack.

The Vashon team will graduate a splendid class of seniors, but has the opportunity next year to take the next step and get to the state final. It will be up to the new leaders on the team to fill some big shoes and bring themselves into next season bigger, sharper and ready to bring in a huge class of freshman coming from the middle school program.

— Greg Martin is the father of a Vashon Vultures lacrosse player.