ST. CHARLES • Hazelwood Central left shell-shocked Summit shaking its head in the Missouri Scholastic Lacrosse Association Division II state championship on Saturday at Lindenwood University.
The Hawks looked past a three-goal, second-half deficit to send the game into overtime where Connor McPartland scored the game-winning goal with 1 minute and 30 seconds to play for the 5-4 victory.
The somewhat routine scoring play was the result of a nice pass from senior Casey Wade to a dashing McPartland, who caught the ball right in front of the Summit cage.
"We've been running that cut the whole season," McPartland said. "I saw a seam and ran through it and finished."
It is the first state title for the Hazelwood Central (13-4) program.
"Our freshman year we were God awful," McPartland said. "Last year was alright. This year, everything came together."
The fourth-seeded Falcons (10-5) had everything going for them for most of the afternoon.
Summit led 3-1 at halftime and Chris Broy's goal off an assist from Kyle Schloss that made it 4-1 with 1:16 left in the third had things looking rosy.
The second-seeded Hawks relied on past experiences when staring at the three-goal deficit.
"We just kept our heads down and pushed back at them," McPartland said.
And the offense that went scoreless for nearly 30 minutes started to figure things out.
Just 34 seconds into the fourth quarter, Wade came from behind the cage, made a spin move, and sent a bounce shot that reached the back of the net. Then the Hawks' Jeremy Williams scored a man-advantage goal with 6:42 left in the fourth that made it a one-goal game, 4-3.
Hazelwood Central goalie Mason Goodwin then made the save of the game on a point-blank Summit shot to keep the Hawks within reach. With 2:30 left in the quarter, Joey Mirth hit McPartland and the senior did the rest, tying the game at 4-4.
"We knew what we wanted to do it just took us a long time to get there," Hazelwood Central coach Brian Livingston said. "We knew we could out-run them and the guys stayed patient."
