LADUE • John Burroughs senior attackman Tommy McKone got his bell rung in the second period of the Bombers' game Thursday with Wentzville.
The shot he took after scoring his first goal of the game not only cleared any mental cobwebs McKone may have had, but the shot also made him a little upset.
Refocused as he was, McKone later scored his second goal of the period to pace the Bombers in the team's 6-2 home win.
"After I got taken down after that hit, I really realized that I needed to step it up," McKone said. "I had to kind of take matters into my own hands."
After the first period ended in a 1-1 tie on a goal by Burroughs sophomore Alex Gafford and a counter by Wentzville middle Brad Fahs, McKone went to work.
He scored the go-ahead goal and took the hit for good measure with 7 minutes, 34 seconds left before halftime and then scored the eventual game-winner with 2:20 to play in the half.
McKone's coach had to inform the senior of his feat.
"He had to ask me ‘did that go in coach?'," Burroughs coach Troy Hood said. "I had to tell him it did."
On his second goal, McKone made a perfect cut to the goal, received a pass from a teammate in the slot and fired the ball home from close range.
"I just decided to hustle hard after the hit," McKone said. "I was working hard before then, but I kind of put it into overdrive."
Once McKone was finished, the Burroughs defense and junior goalie Josh Gollub went to work.
In the final seconds of the first half, a shot came from a crowd Gollub had to quickly knock away before it went into the gaping net.
At that point, the junior was just getting started.
Though he was only tested on sporadic occasions, Gollub stood tall in the net for Burroughs.
"They didn't show us anything we hadn't seen already this year," said Gollub of Wentzville. "We have great coaches and they had us prepared. It also helps having two 6-foot-3, 200-pound defensemen in front of you."
The third period featured Burroughs doubling its goal output for the game with three more tallies to make the score 6-1.
Freshman Jackson Maritz, Christopher Gilman and Christopher Wetzel all scored in the third to account for the five-goal lead.
In addition to his goal, Gafford pitched in two assists.
"We've been having trouble possessing the ball," Hood said. "The guys are beat up and sore because we played a real physical team in O'Fallon (Ill.) on Monday. For a team that's used to playing JV ball (Burroughs is playing a mixed schedule this season), they're just discovering what physical lacrosse is all about."
The final goal of the game came from Wentzville's Corey Stengel with 4:33 left in the game to make the score 6-2.
While Gollub and the Burroughs defense made life difficult for the Wentzville offense, the Indians didn't do themselves any favors, either.
Simply possessing the ball proved difficult for Wentzville.
"We really did struggle with possession," Wentzville coach Chris Benton said. "I don't know if it was the weather or if it was (the fact that) we'd had a couple of days off the last few days. We tried to take care of the ball and we tried to get it in behind them and that just didn't happen, either."
